Ordinary 18

The EighteenthSunday of Ordinary Time

Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

The second in a series on John 6.

The desert can be a hostile place. Food is scare and the lack of water threatens life. Jesus retreated into the desert for 40 days. Heat and thirst left him weak and his will vulnerable. Hunger tempted him to turn stones into bread.

The Hebrews wandered in the desert for 40 years in search of land upon which to settle. The brilliant desert sun erasing from their memories the dehumanizing experience of slavery while blinding them to their present experience of freedom. Unlike Jesus they gave in to their temptations. They wanted to return to Egypt and eat their fill of bread.

Like the Hebrews, are you a complainer? Does your outlook on life revolve around wishful thinking and a revival of the past?

When speaking in terms of the spiritual life such a path is a dead end. The living God is never found in going back. Pope Francis once remarked, “faith is not a thing of the past, like an artefact in a museum”, but the nurturing of a living reality. The desire to return to the past is why not one person who left Egypt entered the Promised Land. They all died in the desert.

Though the desert can be harsh it still possesses its own  stark beauty.  Whether literal or metaphorical, it is the place to which God is leading us.  Why? Listen to God speak to us through the prophet Hosea. “I am going to seduce you, and lead you into the desert and speak to your heart” [Hosea 2:16]. Is it not the voice of a tender lover?

But the desert is a place of thirst and hunger! And, yes, our God wants us to hunger and thirst; to hunger and thirst for divine love. In the desert there are no distractions so that we can intently listen to God’s voice speak to our hearts.

Unbeknownst to us, the pandemic has been an entryway into a desert experience. People are starving in many ways. Isolation, the missing of personal connections, touch, and human warmth mark us all. Have we heard the voice of God speaking to our hearts in these desert times? Have we been open to the intimacy of God?

We’ve compromised the experience through the use of Zoom, live-streaming and Facebook. Francis wrote in his latest encyclical, “Fratelli tutti”, that digital relationships do not “demand the slow and gradual cultivation of friendships”.  Even if they have “the appearance of sociality,” they “do not really build community”.* And so we find ourselves still thirsty and hungry.

Last week I introduced you to the art of Sieger Köder as a source of reflection on  the Eucharist.

Look at Köder’s painting of the Hebrews in the desert. Barrenness surrounds them. Nothing flourishes and the desert horizon   is without oasis. Only a glimmer of dawn light breaks the morning darkness. Does the painting not depict our experience in this past year? The Hebrews have become an exiled people living in tents, exiled from each other with their complaining and blaming. Have we not become an exiled people?  

With Pope Francis’ observations as background, remarks that are being voiced by some Catholics  should deeply sadden and worry all of us is that after this past year they do not miss the Sunday gathering for the Eucharist. There are reports that many Catholics do not understand and even doubt the meaning of the “real presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist. I do not believe the exile of the pandemic has caused such isolation or doubt but has only highlighted and deepened what was already present in people’s hearts.

Look again at Köder’s painting.

The Hebrews are collecting a strange substance we all ‘manna’. The Hebrew word is really a question, “What is it?”  Look at the range of facial expressions from bewilderment to wonder, questioning to gratitude and caution. A couple of the women are gingerly tasting the strange food. Checking it out. Is it good to the taste? Are we going to like it?

Yes, “What is it?”  How often does God take us by surprise in showing us divine, tender, love in unexpected ways?

For Jews and Christians the desert remains a symbol of a place of prayer and the path in our search for God. Let me correct myself, God’s search for us. “I am going to seduce you, and lead you into the desert and speak to your heart”. God continues to lure and seduce us into the desert.

Did you ever consider our Sunday gathering for the Eucharist as a form of desert?

Like a desert, the gathering for Eucharist removes us from our everyday life – Egypt. Like a desert, the Eucharist invites us to a place that sets us out on a path of prayer – is not our complaining a form of obstinate prayer? Like a desert, the Eucharist is where we feel lost, wandering and searching – maybe instead of finding, hoping to be found?

For what is the purpose of a desert?

Is it not to forge, like a furnace, a strong, resilient people?

Thus we need to ban from our language phrases like we are “going to Mass” or “going to Church” even “receiving Communion”. More so, ban from our church law “the obligation of Sunday Eucharist”. Divine Love cannot be legislated.

The movement of the Eucharist, a Greek word which means “thanksgiving”, begins with God’s seduction of us. Gathering for the Eucharist is a response to the invitation of a lover.

The Sunday gathering for the Eucharist may be what Catholics of our culture most desperately need. We are a people always on the move, an unsettled people. We can hear ourselves in the voices of the crowds of the Gospel. They are frenetic, distracted, and hectic voices.  

“When did you get here?”  “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”“What sign can you do that we may believe in you?” “What can you do?”“God gave us bread from heaven”.      “Give us this bread always”.

It is the voices of a people who want to quickly know everything, solve everything and move on. Another thing to be checked off our ‘To Do’ list.

Consider. Do we intentionally gather for the Eucharist, that is, make a conscious choice to respond to God seduction? Are we looking forward to encounter each other and God?

Are we interested and do we inquire about what is going on in each other’s lives? That care and concern forms community, it forges a people, and it is a gradual process.

Intentionally gathering in the desert of the Eucharist allows us to settle in. We are here to stay for a while. Do we arrive early, enter the silences of the liturgy and linger, savouring the sacred action when it is complete?  

In our world so filled with sounds and noises, do we hunger for silence? Not the silence of isolation but the silence demanded of us to listen with the heart. For how can we be seduced by God speaking gentle whisperings through the readings if our hearts are distracted?

Do we take advantage of the time and the sacred space created by the liturgy for our eternal lives?

One final look at the painting. The dawn is gradually approaching enlightening the darkness; the darkness, doubts and stubbornness of our minds. The food, whether we fully understand it or not, is pure gift. How does a person respond to a gift?

Remember the story of John 6 was never about fish and loaves nor is it about manna and quail.

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*See America, The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture, August 2021, “Why Can’t We Be Friends” by John W. Miller.

Images, passages and ideas are from Magdalen Lawler, a Sister of Notre Dame from her book, Love Bade Me Welcome: Reflections on the Eucharist in the Art of Sieger Köder, Pauline Books and Media, 2016. http://www.PaulineUK .org