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Exploring the word

12 Aug 2012 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

When undertaking a journey—whether it be a vacation, pilgrimage, relocation, or the life-voyage as a whole—you need to prepare appropriately. Underpacking is perilous. Overpacking is burdensome. Lugging the wrong equipment is frustrating. Every inch and ounce of luggage has to be made to count. Some things are always useful, no matter where you’re headed. Education. Information. Logic. Courage and determination. Creativity and resourcefulness. A cheerful attitude and a can-do spirit. A sense of humor is essential. Being able to laugh at yourself and the absurdity of the unexpected can be more helpful than the can-opener or matches you left behind. Maybe Elijah failed to bring humor along that day he fled into the desert. Ahab and Jezebel were out for his blood, true, but throwing himself under a broom tree and praying for death was not a helpful response to his dilemma. Also, he went a day’s journey into the desert without water and food. While accustomed to living by a spring with ravens bringing him sustenance, he might have been pushing his luck this time. Evidently Elijah was unfamiliar with the saying: God helps those who help themselves. No matter. God remained faithful to his prophet. Not quite finished with Elijah, God sent an angel to revive him for one more expedition. Many of us have been to this spot ourselves, the point at which we are no longer willing to try to save ourselves, the moment of exhaustion when we give up and let fate decide if we survive or not. And then the angel comes, by any other name. It could be in the form of an unanticipated reprieve, a phone call or sudden visitor, a stranger’s kind word, or what we often call a "lucky break.” Grace arrives and a bridge appears over troubled waters, enabling us to cross to the other side unscathed. It’s the hour when we might remember to say: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord! Life is full of desert moments when, if the manna doesn’t fall from heaven or the angel doesn’t arrive in time, we’re goners. Even if we travel in Winnebagos or never leave home without American Express, sooner or later we find ourselves on a trail we didn’t plan to take, without the resources we need to endure it. Illness, unemployment, disability, the anguish of losing someone we love, moral uncertainties take us by surprise and can hurl us under the broom tree, out of options and praying for a quick resolution, however final. The single most critical item, though, to take on this journey—on any journey—is confidence in God. God will always provide bread for the road we’re on. When God is our destination, any road will do. Related Scripture links Being taught by God: Isa. 54:13; Jer. 31:33-34 Come to me all who labor: Matt. 11:28 Elijah’s exploits: 1 Kings 17-19 Manna story: Exod. 16:1-35 Other “magic” meal stories: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Mark 6:34-44; 8:1-9 With God all things are possible: Matt. 19:26 or Mark 10:27 Catechism links Eucharist: CCC 1333-1336; 1341-1344; 1356-1390; 2177-2183

Authors Alice Camille

manna angel Journey Elijah

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Sign & sacrament

12 Aug 2012 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

On their desert journey the Israelites gathered up and ate the manna that sustained them for their trek to the land of promise. Eventually they did arrive, but also, eventually, they died. Elijah depended on the food and drink that God provided so that he might make it to his destination, the mountain of God. He arrived, yet that prophet also died. John’s gospel, though, emphasizes our hunger for God, as constant and basic as our hunger for food, but also a spiritual hunger that will be satisfied only by our being nourished by the body of Christ. Jesus calls himself the bread of heaven not only to keep us going during our turn on the planet but as the taste of heaven so that we who partake “may eat it and not die.”

manna Desert Elijah

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Exploring the word

05 Aug 2012 - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

There’s a war on carbs going on out there! But we Christians must stand up for bread. Bread stories abound in scripture: the blessed offering of Melchizedek to Abram; the bread of angels that rains down in the Exodus desert; Elisha’s miraculous multiplication we recalled last week; Elijah’s angelic hearth cake we’ll hear about next week; and on and on through gospel stories of multiplied meals until we get to the bread-to-end-all-breads, which is the Bread of Life itself. Isaiah once urged his listeners not to waste their money on food that fails to satisfy. He said not to put your hard-earned cash on the table for less than bread. That’s because bread is the staff of life, the bottom line of subsistence in so many cultures. It’s why we use the terms bread or dough to refer to exchangeable currency and why making a living is “earning our bread and butter,” as bread historians note. Bread is, simply, the one thing we depend on for life. Even in the proverbial jail cell, you could always count on bread and water. In fact, bread and water were two items on the Israelite grumble-list in the desert. The God of Moses sprung them from slavery in Egypt, but they behaved like captives ever after. Even in bondage, after all, they got bread and water! If Moses can’t do as much, they might as well have gone back to Egypt. Once they have the manna, of course, they started clamoring for meat. Jesus gave his multitude bread and fish up front, so they rushed after him as soon as their bellies were growling again, looking for more. What part of “wagering for what fails to satisfy” didn’t they understand? Jesus reminded them that perishables from the grocery store are called that for a reason. Their usefulness is transient. Moreover, though these folks didn’t know it now, Jesus wouldn’t be around forever to provide them with a portable lunch. But he could and does and will offer them the bread of God that lasts forever—and because it’s eternal, he offers the same to us. Yes, we’re talking about Holy Communion and heaven. And no, it’s not “just” that—although some might argue that’s pretty darn good. Communion with the life of Christ is a total conformity to the values, mission, and heart of Christ. We “put on the new self,” as it says in Ephesians. “For it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Saint Paul told the Galatians. “The bread you eat will claim your heart,” preacher Walter Brueggemann says. In other words, we get the True Bread; and the True Bread gets us. Retades Scripture links Significant “God-crossings”: Gen. 3:8; 15:17; 28:12-13; Exod. 3:4-6; 19:16-20; 33:18-23 Seven signs in John 1-12: Water into wine, official’s son, cripple at Bethesda, loaves and fishes, walking on water, man born blind, raising of Lazarus Manna ends at Cana: Josh. 5:11-12 Catechism links God’s love: CCC 218-221; 733 Bread of Life: CCC 103; 1338; 1355; 1392; 1509; 2830; 2835; 2837 Manna: CCC 1094; 1334 New self: CCC 1473; 1695; 2475

Authors Alice Camille

manna communion Elijah Bread

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Sign & sacrament

05 Aug 2012 - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The word manna can be translated “what is this?” Not a bad question for us who are confronted on a Sunday morning not with strange, edible flakes strewn upon the desert floor but with the “true bread from heaven.” Some of us are old enough to recall parents who would take that bread, Holy Communion, at Mass only if they had gone to confession the very day before. Today we do not presume upon familiarity. Asking ourselves “what is this?” or “what is the Eucharist?” can keep us from taking the sacrament for granted. The crowds misunderstood Jesus’ meaning and expected his bread to nourish them like a loaf warm from the oven—a limited view. A hymn says it better: The one “whom earth and heaven cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.”

manna Bread confession Eucharist

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Homily stories

26 Jun 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle A

In today's first reading, Moses tells the people that their hunger was a gift from God so they can come to know their deeper hunger and dependence on God. Many of the religious images in our salvation history have to do with being fed by God: manna in the desert, Jesus lying in a manger (a food trough that signals his role as food for the world), Jesus feeding the 5,000, the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and on the road to Emmaus, and more. It's typical with an admired person to toast them and their accomplishments and even what they stand for. But in the Eucharist, we don't just "toast" Jesus, we take him into ourselves, we consume him, are fed by him, and are transformed by him. And more than admiring him from afar, we hope that, in faith, we may become what we eat.

Moses Hunger manna Eucharist

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Homily themes

19 Aug 2012 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

"The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus spoke of the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life in terms of the past, present, and future. In the past the Israelites ate manna in the desert but “still died.” In the present, he said, there was the need to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” in order to “have life within you.” Those who do that now will be raised “on the last day” and “will live forever.”

Authors Joel Schorn

Eternal life manna Bread

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Homily stories

12 Aug 2012 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Those who “murmur” about Jesus in the gospel couldn’t seem to understand how the human being they were familiar with could claim to have come down from heaven. They could not see past the immediate situation of the human Jesus they knew on earth to the Son of God they could know forever, just as their ancestors who ate the manna God gave them in the desert could not see past their hunger to the God who was not in fact abandoning them, so they grumbled for food. In both cases the people could not accept their immediate experience and connect it to the holy. To participate in what the church calls the “Paschal Mystery,” though, requires just that: to accept both the humanity and divinity of Jesus. As Saint Paul succinctly put it in the Letter to the Philippians, to enter into this mystery is to know Christ “and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death” (3:10). The followers of Christ have to accept not only his suffering but their own in order to see the eternal life behind them.

Authors Joel Schorn

paschal mystery manna letter to the philippians

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Homily stories

05 Aug 2012 - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

If you read the entire story about the manna, all of Exodus 16, you will find that it was a way God would test the people “to see whether they follow my instructions or not.” Indeed, the giving of the manna becomes a series of tests of whether the Israelites would follow God’s commands, concluding with Moses telling Aaron: “Take a jar and put a full omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to keep it for your future generations.” Skip ahead to 2 Maccabees 2. There you’ll find the tale of how the prophet Jeremiah put the Ark, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar—and presumably with it the jar of original manna—into a hiding place “to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy” (2 Macc. 2:7) when the manna “shall again descend from on high,” as a first-century Jewish text put it. In Jesus’ time this legend gave messianic weight to the crowd’s own questions to Jesus: Was he revealing a new “manna” to the people and thereby a new time when “the glory of the Lord and the cloud will be seen, just as they appeared in the time of Moses” (2 Macc. 2:8)?

Authors Joel Schorn

Exodus manna 2 maccabees 2

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Homily stories

26 Jun 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle A

When I was 15, my mother would go crazy if she found me staring for long stretches into an open refrigerator. I knew I was hungry, but I wasn't sure for what. I'm sure that the disquieting changes going on in my adolescent self prompted a hunger I couldn't quite satisfy. Nutritionists often advise dieters to stop a moment before even opening the refrigerator door to ask themselves an important question: Am I really hungry for food? It may well be that this feeling that drives me to the pantry has more to do with nervousness about a pending deadline, some dark thought about a recent social faux pas, or a bit of loneliness than it does with my need for physical sustenance. Our hungers, whether physical, emotional, social, or spiritual can all tend to blend together. Thus, the Israelites went hungry before manna arrived to acquaint them with their yearning for God, and the Jews of Jesus' time confused his eucharistic invitation to eat his flesh with cannibalism. The nutritionists are right: We ought to become clear about the true nature of our hungers. In this land of plenty, maybe we should put down the ham sandwich and seek satisfaction in the Word of God. In fact, maybe I ought to situate myself before an open Bible like I used to stand in front of Mom's well-stocked fridge.

Authors Tom McGrath

hungry nutritionist manna word of god

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Homily themes

09 Aug 2009 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

I am the bread of life. Continuing Jesus’ words on the Bread of Life from two Sundays ago, the gospel today tells how the Son, the one who “comes down from heaven,” both gives life and is life himself. Manna was also food that came from God, but it remained food. Jesus himself becomes what he offers: eternal life. He is nourishment that sustains those who believe in him on the journey from death and despair, as Ezekiel felt, to new life. This journey is also one of discipleship. In the Eucharist we encounter this Living Bread, both offering and the One who offers, which sustains us to the end. Homily points Our sensory reality is more compelling to us than abstract ideas. The angels of scripture provide a bridge between the idea of salvation and its visible experience. Jesus fills the immediacy gap between the memory of God’s salvation and the present moment of this generation. Our Eucharist is the perceivable experience of Christ’s life here and now. All we have to do is incorporate it.

manna bread of live living bread

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