Dear Friends,
Remember how, in the musical Oliver, the orphans sing
“Food, Glorious Food!”
Food. Junk food
and health food.
Food that we
consume as couch potatoes.
People – you
and I - use food to control
uncontrollable factors in our lives: We might not have a good relationship, but
we can have a good steak!
Sometimes,
probably rarely, we dine with power. Sometimes we stuff ourselves.
We eat to
forget, to remember, to feel comforted, to be sociable.
Sometimes we
eat because we are truly hungry.
Sometimes we
eat to gain strength for the journey – real soul food.
Sometimes we
eat to survive.
Food is
something we never tire of having, reading about or talking about.
Beginning on
July 26 and for four more weeks, the Sunday Gospels are from John
6 - that portion of the Gospel in which
Jesus feeds the many and then is challenged because he says “I am the true bread that comes down from
heaven.”
We can
concentrate on John 6 or we can read it with other passages that remind
us how pervasive bread is In various parts of the Scripture. The Bible is
full of reminders, easy to memorize, valuable to underscore the place and power
of spiritual food in our lives. Here are a few such sentences, culled and
rephrased, that are packed with wisdom
for us to help us grow this summer:
My will is to do the will of my Father.
Jesus was clear about that. He recognized that His Father’s will is that the
world be safe and healthy for all people, that justice be done and that mercy
and compassion be the way we address and
embrace the suffering we encounter along the way.
We must become food for others: given
and consumed. Sometimes we are consumed for a short time. Sometimes we are
totally consumed.
We do not live on bread alone. Each
day, each of us receives manna, in many ways – a word of peace which calms us,
a newspaper headline, a stirring within, a phone call from a stranger asking
us to serve in a new way, an experience which refines our hearts or lends
clarity to our vision.
And finally:
The Lord will give us the bread we need.
Study your own lives and see how you
have been fed with the bread you needed when you needed it.
Be ready
this summer for tasty spiritual food to peak our appetite for God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
