Weekly SUMMER SNIPPETS for August 26, 2012: Developing an Attitude of Gratitude

Summer Snippets: Developing an Attitude of Gratitude

            Originally I was going to call this final Summer Snippet “A Fond Farewell to Friends,” for my last Mass here will be this Friday and Father Chuck returns from his sabbatical next weekend. “Farewell” somehow did not feel right since it implies a decided end. There was something too final about that. What I did experience, as I put pen to paper, was a deep sense of gratitude both to Father Chuck for inviting me to serve these three months and for your wonderfully warm welcome. But the feelings of gratitude only begin there.

Celebrating Eucharist, Baptisms, Reconciliation, Anointing, and daily Mass in the Stone Chapel gave me individual and communal ways to greet, worship and heal as one among you.

Meetings with the Staff, Finance Committee, Parish Corporators, and Pastoral Council gave me a bird’s eye view of why this is such an effective parish.

Watching so many of you carry food on Sunday mornings to the basement of the Stone Chapel, attending the installation of officers for the Knights of Columbus, hosting Father Christophe from Haiti, going to the JIF play, and visiting with Diane as she created the setting for Summer Bible School gave me a first hand view of some of the many volunteers and great ministries that are here in the parish. I regret that I wasn’t able to accept the invitation to lunch with the senior group every Monday, since I have spiritual direction sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays in Silver Spring.

Doughnut Sundays, monthly New Parishioner Welcome Breakfasts, weekly Bingo, Luau, and the parish picnic this weekend showed me how much you enjoy socializing with each other. However, what I’ve enjoyed most perhaps is greeting you before and after Mass each weekend, for it gave me time to meet one-on-one the hundreds who come to Sunday Mass and as well as an appreciation of the diversity that there is among you, a diversity in culture, background, age, physical abilities, and economic standing. And to see that all are welcome, all belong, was such a gift for which to be grateful.

Speaking of being grateful, each evening before putting out the light I generally review the day’s activities and try to name three things for which I am grateful that day. I make an effort to search for little things. For example last evening’s were: I was grateful for someone who rarely smiles and who greeted me with a warm one, or the fact the rain held out in the early morning until after my jog, or that a rescheduled appointment opened up an hour for me to do something else that needed tending. After only a few months of this practice it began to bear fruit. Two things became evident.

First, I began to surface smaller and smaller things for which to be grateful, things I would have never considered before – the shimmering of a tree’s leaves in the sunlight, a used Coke can thrown on the rectory lawn by a passerby that became an occasion to be grateful that I could even bend over to pick it up, or the sky-blue pink of the sky as the sun set a few hours ago.

Second, I begin to notice little blessings in the moment so I can note them and savor the experience right while it is taking place. That is a much fuller and richer experience than simply recalling it later that evening. I am always struck at how much time and effort we put into taking pictures on a vacation and how we look at the picture after the event is over rather than enjoying the event while it is taking place. Being “in the moment” is a heck of a lot more exciting than being “in the memory.” Recalling things that happened in the course of the day will help you do that. So I spend a fair amount of time now trying to be mindful and alert, noting what’s going on around me. I try to thank God for it on the spot and then savor the present moment’s experience.

Speaking of savoring reminds me of how I came to value the experience of savoring. Growing up, my family would have been called “under-classed.” There was not a whole lot of money available to us for extras and while we never went to bed hungry we ate lots of chicken and lots of pasta. The only desert we had during the week was fruit and on Sunday it was always cheesecake from “Custom Bakers” in Island Park, Long Island. My mother always made sure that we ate the cheesecake slowly and not drink water with it for that washed down the flavors that filled our mouths. We had to eat it s-l-o-w-l-y very s-l-o-w-l-y, savoring each small forkful. So I learned early how to savor. Each moment, if savored in this way, would have us see God at work in our lives and we, experiencing gratitude for that working. While I am not yet able to do it, I could see how eventually my whole day could become a blessing-in-the-moment.

As I take my leave to return to leading contemplative retreats and parish missions full-time, I invite you to join me in gratitude for our paths having crossed here at the altar of St. Francis De Sales. I am so much the richer for your love and support and our shared experiences. May God continue to hold you and your loved ones in the palm of his hand.

With love and gratitude,

                        Father Nicholas

PS. Retreats, parish missions, weekly homilies and other offerings I am involved in can be found on my FaceBook page “Father Nicholas Amato.” 

Weekly HOMILY for August 26, 2012: 21th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- Master, to whom shall we go?

21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

St. Francis De Sales Church

August 26, 2012

 

Master, to whom shall we go?

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

“This saying is hard”

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Jesus has just finished teaching about the Eucharist.  He has made some amazing statements.

Like, “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6.51).  And again, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6.54).

So, some of the people, not surprisingly, say: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  These words got me thinking this past week.

I paged through the gospels and realized that today’s is not the only hard saying.  There are others.

Hard Sayings

For example, right at the beginning of the story about Jesus, the angel of the Lord explains things to Joseph. 

The angel tells Joseph that “it is through the Holy Spirit that the child has been conceived” in Mary (Matthew 1.10).  This is a hard saying. 

It goes against all we know about how children are conceived and born.  And yet, could it not be so? 

Would the almighty transcendent God who is the origin of the vast universe and the origin of the amazing complexity of the human body be limited to our ways and to what we know? 

Could not the divine become one with the human or emerge in humanity in a way that is beyond our imagination? 

So, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

And then there is Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness.

He tells us to forgive “seven times seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18.22).  This means that we are never to stop forgiving, to forgive without limits.

This again is a hard saying.  Common sense tells us not to be a doormat, to stand up for ourselves, and eventually just to be finished with an offensive or hurtful person.     

And yet, when we don’t forgive – and certainly, we will remember and we usually cannot forget – but when we don’t forgive, whom are we really hurting? 

Aren’t we hurting ourselves at least as much as the other person by just being eaten up with loathing and vengeance and hate?

So, once again, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

And then there is Jesus’ saying, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10.39).

Again, another hard saying.  Aren’t we supposed to be responsible for ourselves and our life?

Isn’t it a good thing to seek my fulfillment in life?  And yet, how many of us who have focused so much on what I want in life end up feeling empty?

How many of us who are so successful feel that there is still something missing?  And on the flip side of it, how many of us who give of our life to and for others and their well-being – maybe to your children or the parish children in the faith formation program or to the hungry in our community or in Baltimore City – how many of us who do this really find inner fulfillment and really find our life?

So, once again, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

Conclusion

There are other hard sayings.

There’s the one on turning the other cheek (Matthew 5.39) and the one on loving your enemies (Luke 6.27) and the one on being great by being the servant of all (Matthew 20.26) and the one on those who humble themselves being exalted (Luke 18.14) and the one on the first being last and the last being first (Matthew 20.16).  You can probably think of others.

And yet, when we examine each of these, just maybe, maybe there’s really something here.  So, today, to return to where we started, maybe Jesus, maybe God can break through and emerge in our midst in a piece of bread and a cup of wine.

Maybe this can be the way for Jesus to be present.  And maybe this is why he says that this is his flesh and blood and if we have communion with him in this way, we have eternal life.

So, maybe, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

Weekly SUMMER SNIPPETS for August 19, 2012: Resources for Contemplative Prayer

Summer Snippets: Resources for Contemplative Prayer

We all have favorite sayings, concepts or quotes tha ground how we look at our lives. We learn them at our mother’s knee, in high school, or pick them up along the way as we grow in wisdom. In these summer snippets I have shared many of those that ground my life of contemplative prayer. This weekend I would like to share a sampler of an individual whose thoughts and writings in large part are responsible for my becoming a priest and growing in a life of contemplative prayer. Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews, including his best-selling autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), which sent scores of World War II veterans, students, and even teen-agers flocking to monasteries across the US.

The following are some of my favorite of his quotes: 

Ø  “A man cannot enter into the deepest center of himself and pass through that center into God, unless he is able to pass entirely out of himself and give himself to other people in the purity of selfless love,” New Seeds of Contemplation p. 64.

Ø  “In prayer we discover what we already have.   You start where you are and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there.   We already have everything, but we don’t know it and we don’t experience it.   Everything has been given to us in Christ.   All we need to is experience what we already possess,” Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute, p. 80.

Ø  “We should not look for a ‘method’ or ‘system,’ but cultivate an ‘attitude,’ an ‘outlook’: faith, openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, joy.   All these finally permeate our being with love insofar as our living faith tells us that we are in the presence of God, that we live in Christ, that in the Spirit of God we ‘see’ God our Father without ‘seeing.’   We know him in ‘unknowing.’   Faith is the bond that unites us to him in the Spirit who gives us light and love,” Contemplative Prayer, p. 94.

Ø  “When we lose our special, separate cultural and religious identity—the ‘self’ or ‘persona’ that is the subject of the virtues as well as the visions, that perfects itself by good works, that advances in the practice of piety—(it is then) that Christ is finally born in us in the highest sense,” Zen and the Birds of Appetite, p. 12.

Ø  “At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.   This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.   It is in everybody.” Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander p. 142.

Ø  “For each of us there is a point of nowhereness in the middle of the movement, a point of nothingness in the midst of being: the incomparable point, not to be discovered by insight.   If you seek it you do not find it.   If you stop seeking, it is there.   But you must not turn to it.   Once you become aware of yourself as a seeker, you are lost.    But if you are content to be lost you will be found without knowing it, precisely because you are lost, for you are, at last, nowhere,” Cables to the Ace or Familiar Liturgies of Misunderstanding, p. 58.

Ø  “There should be at least a room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you.   You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and tensions that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of others… There, even when they do not know how to pray, at least they can still breathe easily.  Let there be a place somewhere in which you can breathe naturally, quietly, and not have to take your breath in continuous short gasps.   A place where your mind can be idle and forget its concerns, descend into silence, and worship the Father in secret.   There can be no contemplation where there is no secret,” New Seeds of Contemplation pp. 81-83.

Ø  “A person is a person insofar as each has a secret and a solitude of their own that cannot be communicated to anyone else.   I will love that which most makes them a person: the secrecy, the hiddenness, the solitude of their own individual being, which God alone can penetrate and understand.   A love that breaks open the spiritual privacy of another in order to lay open all their secrets and besiege their solitude with importunity, does not love them: it seeks to destroy what is best in them, and what is most intimately theirs,” No Man is an Island p. 258.

Ø  “Feel free to do nothing, without feeling guilty…   This is what the Zen people do.   They give a great deal of time to doing whatever they need to do.   That’s what we have to learn when it comes to prayer.   We have to give it time,” Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute, pp. 81-82.

Ø  “What do we want, if not to pray?   O.K., now pray.   This is the whole doctrine of prayer in the Rule of St. Benedict.   It’s all summed up in one phrase: ‘If a man wants to pray, let him go and pray.’   That is all St. Benedict feels it is necessary to say about the subject.   He doesn’t say, let us start with a little introductory prayer, etc., etc.   If you want to pray, pray,” Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute, pp. 84-85.

Ø  “The best way to pray is: stop.   Let prayer pray within you, whether you know it or not.   This means a deep awareness of our true inner identity.   It implies a life of faith, but also of doubt.   You can’t have faith without doubt.   Give up the business of suppressing doubt.   Doubt and faith are two sides of the same thing.   Faith will grow out of doubt, the real doubt.   We don’t pray right because we evade doubt.   It is in these two ways that we create a false identity, and these are the two ways in which we justify the self-perpetuation of our institutions,” Thomas Merton/Monk: A Monastic Tribute, pp. 87-88.

Ø  “… whatever you do, every act  however small, can teach you everything.   Provided you see who it is that is acting,” Thomas Merton, Learning to Live, University on the Heights, p. 10.

Ø  “It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers and my sisters.  The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.   It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others.   Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers and my sisters for what they are, not for what they say,” The Sign of Jonas, pp. 261-262.

As with a Whitman’s Sampler, I hope at least one of the “chocolates” in the box touches a desire within you.

Fondly,

Father Nicholas

Weekly HOMILY for August 19, 2012: 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- Blood Lines: Human and Divine

20^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

St. Francis De Sales Church

August 19, 2012 

Blood Lines: Human and Divine

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

Human Blood Lines

During World War II, the Red Cross made blood available to all who needed it – ally or enemy.

The Red Cross would also try to provide the soldier with the name of the donor.  That way the soldier could write a note of thanks if he wanted to do so.

A very poignant custom developed among the Red Cross medics in Europe.  If a Nazi officer needed blood, they would find a Jewish donor.

The medic would then tell the officer, “The bad news is: If left to your own strength and resources, you will die.  The good news: We have blood that will save your life – blood from a Jewish donor.

“All you have to do is accept it.”  Astoundingly, a few Nazi soldiers refused the blood. 

But most of them gladly accepted the blood from a fellow human being – and in their case a Jewish donor.  And, to accept life through this blood demanded a new view and attitude toward Jewish people.

Divine Blood Lines

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks of the gift of himself that he offers us.

He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.

He continues, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  We see then, that Jesus gives us himself, his flesh and blood as he says, in the signs of bread and wine.

And Jesus gives us himself in this way for one purpose – for life, that we may live in him and he may live in us.  Thus we are given a different life, Jesus’ life, God’s life, through the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Those Nazi officers received life by accepting blood transfusions from Jewish donors.  They had a new life in them and this led to a new life and new outlook in them.

In a similar way, our receiving Jesus’ flesh and blood in the bread and wine is to lead to a new life, a new lifestyle, a new outlook in us.  It does this precisely because we have the life of Jesus and of the Father through this food.

New Life

I see two impacts that this new life will have in us because of our “transfusion” from Jesus’ own body.

First, we like God the Father can now to be life giving.  We have the ability to be creative, sustaining, and enhancing of human life wherever we encounter it.

For example, we are to be in awe of the tiny, developing life of a baby in the womb of a mother.  We are to do all we can to care for this life and bring it to full development and birth.

We are to tend the life of one another, beginning with those close to us.  We are to tend carefully to the total development of our children, and also provide tender, supportive care for our elderly.

In the bigger social picture, we are to seek and promote ways to provide health care to everyone.  Our Catholic social teaching sees this as a human right, closely connected to the right to life itself.

Second, our receiving the transfusion from Jesus’ is also to make us bridge-builders. 

The Nazi officers who accepted the blood from Jewish donors were led to see themselves as physically connected with these men and women, to see them as brothers and sisters.

We who receive Jesus’ flesh and blood will be affected in a similar way. 

For example, in our families, we are to live our connection with the so-called black sheep who may have been a problem.

We here in Harford County are to see our connection with those in Baltimore City whose life situation is probably very different from ours.  We in America are to see that we now live in a global world with all nations.

What is important may no longer be that we are first and others are second or third, but that we are all “we” and we will all live together.  We in the Church need to abandon an exclusivist, insider-outsider mentality and adopt an inclusivist, welcoming mentality.

Conclusion

So, the story of the Red Cross medics is pointed and helpful.

It helps us realize what our receiving the body and blood of Jesus, the life of God moves us to do.  We also are to embrace a new life and new lifestyle in being life-giving and bridge building. 

Daily HOMILY for August 15, 2012: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Cycle B -- Mother Mary: Model for Modern Time

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Cycle B

St. Francis De Sales

August 15, 2012

Mother Mary: Model for Modern Time

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

 

Mother Mary

Four years ago, our Church celebrated the Year of Saint Paul.

It was the 2,000^th birthday of Saint Paul.  A priest friend and I had the wonderful opportunity of doing a tour of Turkey – a kind of footsteps of Saint Paul tour.

The guide for the group was a Turkish man named Izeet.  Izeet is a Muslim and we had a number of good conversations with him.

One of our stops was Ephesus.  As you know, in the New Testament one of Saint Paul’s letters is the Letter to the Ephesians, the people of ancient Ephesus.

Well, after touring Ephesus, our guide Izeet had the bus driver take us up a mountain next to Ephesus to the house of Mary.  Tradition says that Saint John brought the Blessed Mother here to Ephesus to live after the crucifixion and resurrection.

Tradition also says that it was here that Mary died and was assumed into heaven.  As we drew near to Mary’s house, Izeet – again, a Muslim man – very reverently spoke of the significance of this house and spoke of Mother Mary.

He referred to Mary very warmly and respectfully as Mother Mary.  It was so touching to hear him, a Muslim, speak so tenderly of Mary – Mother Mary – and of the great significance of this house.

Full of Grace

My thought is that even non-Christians recognize the absolute goodness of Mary.

Mary’s holiness and closeness to God is transparent.  I suggest this is what the angel Gabriel means at the moment of the Annunciation in telling Mary that she is “full of grace.”

Being “full of grace” means that Mary is full of God and God’s life.  It means that she is completely one with God.

And that is why from ancient times, tradition says that at the moment of her death, Mary was assumed into heaven.  She was taken body and soul into heaven to be with God for all eternity.

Hope for Us All

Mary’s Assumption into heaven is a great sign of hope for all of us.  It, or she calls us to allow God to fill us too with his life and to become as one with God as possible.

The, someday we too will be taken up into heaven at he moment of our death.  That is the hope that we celebrated today in Mary, in Mother Mary and in her being assumed into heaven.

Weekly SUMMER SNIPPETS for August 12, 2012: Spiritual Presence for Men In Stressful Times

Summer Snippets: “Spiritual Presence for Men In Stressful Times”

            It’s time to talk about contemplative presence to the guys out there and if you’re a gal, I’d like to talk to the man in your life. The frenetic world men find themselves in today can wear you down. Responsibilities to the family, job, aging parents, volunteer commitments can all come together to get you wrapped around the axel. Not only is there no time left for yourself, but there’s no time to be alone, to be in the presence of God who continues trying to break through into our world.

Last year I was asked by the Retreat and Conference Center at Bon Secours, in Marriottsville, MD, to design a weekend workshop/retreat for men only. It would be an opportunity for men to walk an inner path that can transform the stresses, strains, and challenges at home and at work into productive encounters with the holy, the grace-filled, the center of who we really are. This I have done and I will be offering the workshop/retreat on the 3^rd weekend of September, the 21^st, 22^nd, and 23^rd. The weekend runs from Friday 5:00pm to Sunday 1:00pm.

Participants will explore specific ways for expanding our awareness of God’s ever-abiding living Presence. That Presence, which is always with us, is a source of steady wisdom, gentle guidance, and quiet strength. What emerges from that union is a partnership for compassionate healing and decisive action in the many arenas of our lives. So what can you expect from this time together with other guys all seeking a little space to pull your life together and set it in a new direction that includes God’s transforming presence? You can expect time to decompress and realign yourself with God’s transforming grace. You can expect great meals and lots of rest.  You can expect new insights in how male spirituality differs from female spirituality. You can key into how men of other cultures contact their inner selves and how it gets expressed.

Friday evening begins with a consideration of the unique stresses in men’s lives today. Saturday has us considering male spiritual energy and delving into the types of male roles through which that energy gets expressed today. The day concludes with a presentation on God’s presence as an energy that can empower your life. Sunday morning has a final session on how to keep the energy flowing in your life and the workshop/retreat ends with Mass followed by lunch. So you come after work on Friday and can be home mid-afternoon on Sunday renewed and refreshed.

            The format of the weekend is not a series of lectures, but experiential learning so it’s a bit of instruction, experience, reflection and sharing if you care to do so. What we hope to deliver by Sunday noon is a better understanding of male energy and how we can use it to decrease stress through an experience of God’s Presence. It is a Presence that can make a difference in our life as a man.

            Is there is something in you causing you to pause to consider joining us? If there is take it as an answer to the desire you have for God in your life! If you would like more information on the workshop/retreat you can email me at fathernicholasamato@gmail.com. If you would like to register, go to http://rccbonsecours.com. I hope you will consider joining us.

  Blessings,

Father Nicholas

Weekly HOMILY for August 12, 2012: 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- “Breads” and Our “Hungers”

19^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

St. Francis De Sales Church

August 12, 2012

“Breads” and Our “Hungers”

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

A Mother’s Love

The well-known French author Victor Hugo tells a very touching story of an incident taking place at the end of the French Revolution.  It is France, the year 1793.

In the story, a young mother and her two children are homeless and poor.  They have wandered through the woods and fields for several days foraging for food.

They are living on roots, bulbs, and any edible vegetation they can find.  One morning, they see two soldiers approaching and they hide in the underbrush.

One of the soldiers – a sergeant – spots them and orders them to come out into the open.  He then brings the malnourished mother and children before his captain.

Instantly, the captain realizes that they are on the verge of starvation.  In an extraordinary act of kindness he offers the mother a small baguette of bread.

Keeping her eyes on him, she takes it and quickly breaks it into two and gives a half to each of her children.  The children ravenously consume the bread, as the mother watches with eyes filled with contentment.

Understandably sergeant is bewildered that the mother has kept none of the bread for herself. He says to his captain, “Is it because the mother is not hungry?”  The captain replies, “No, Sergeant, it is because she is a mother.”     

 

The Story As a Metaphor

This mother’s love, in the gesture of giving her starving children the bread, is a wonderful reflection of God’s love for us.

The bread is the only thing between life and death for them and she gives it so willingly and they receive it so hungrily.

That half a baguette was for them, literally, their bread of life.

In a similar way, Jesus in today’s Gospel, tells us that God is giving himself to us as the “the bread of life.”

Yes, God is the mother in the story; and yes, we are the two starving children.

Three “Breads of Life”

So what is the bread for us? That is, what are the sustaining elements of nourishment that we can touch, feel, eat, and understand?

I would hold that Jesus does indeed provide us with the “bread of life” and that we have only to notice it and be grateful for it.

For example, has the Word you’ve heard from this ambo/pulpit, the remark of a preacher, or a line you’ve read in your bible, ever sustained you? Got you through a tough time?

Remember at that moment how hungry, famished, ready you were to hear something? And how God reached out and fed you with the bread of life that was the Word?

Or recall a time when you felt unworthy, weak or sinful, and admitting your weakness you hesitatingly came up this very aisle and received the bread of life in your cupped hands?

The taste in your mouth of the bread of angles lingered in your mouth and all was well. All was good again. You know well then the sense of satiation, the curbing of hunger that those two hungry boys felt. And here the bread of life was the Eucharist.

Finally, there is something within us that doesn’t want to have us eat alone. You rarely see someone in a restaurant asking for a table for one. We gather together as a family around a table and it is important to note that the very gathering is life giving.

But look again, the gathering is not just a group of folks hanging out at Bertucci’s or Bob Evans. It’s a group of fellow believers who have been nourished on the same bread of the Word and have eaten the same bread of the Eucharist, and have become the bread of life that is spiritual community. And that, dear friends, makes all the difference in the world!

For we have a place where we belong, a place where we receive consolation in our times of trouble and where we receive challenges in our thinking or lifestyle.

One Qualification: Hunger

Like the two starving children, the only qualification you need to be fed with the bread of heaven is hunger.

Jesus is “the bread of life,” not just for the good or the best or the perfect. Jesus is the bread of life for all of us – human, imperfect, with a mix of virtue and sin, myself included. 

Jesus himself never questions the worthiness of anyone.

Whether he feeds 5,000 on a hillside, 12 at the Last Supper, or the 250 of us here, he does not withhold the gift of bread from those lacking in virtue.  Again, the only requirement is hunger.

So, we’re left with one question to answer for ourselves: How hungry am I?

Weekly HOMILY for August 5, 2012: 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- Satisfying Higher and Lower Needs

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

August 5, 2012

St. Francis De Sales, Abingdon, MD

Satisfying Higher and Lower Needs

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

NEEDS AS MOTIVATORS

When I was in graduate studies at Catholic University one of our authors was a social psychologist named Douglas McGregor.

McGregor’s talk a great deal about motivation in the workplace and he holds that, in the workplace and in life in general, our human needs serve as motivators.

Furthermore, our needs as human beings are the reason we move toward a higher goal.  He divides these goals into lower needs and higher needs and then draws an interesting contrast between them.

Lower needs are things like salary, food, and shelter.  Higher needs are things like self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and relationships.

The lower needs differ from the higher needs in that there is a point where the lower needs get relatively satisfied and then no longer really satisfy us.  At that point satisfaction comes only from the higher needs.

For example, money and a nice home and good food will only satisfy to a point.  Unfortunately, instead of moving to the higher needs of self-esteem, self-fulfillment and relationships, we sometimes get stuck in the lower needs.

We dupe ourselves into thinking that more of them, like more money or a bigger home, will make us happier. Unfortunately that isn’t the case because they can never satisfy as the higher need would.

JESUS: HIGHER NEEDS

Being stuck in these lower needs is precisely where Jesus finds the people who are looking for him in today’s Gospel.

Jesus says: “You are looking for me not because you see signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled” – this is a reference to Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 that we witnessed in last week’s Gospel.  

And then Jesus says: “Do not work for food that perishes” – that is, food that satisfies a lower need.

Instead, he says, “work for food that endures for eternal life” – that is, food that satisfies a higher need. 

Then Jesus identifies three sources for this enduring or imperishable food that satisfies our higher needs.  

IMPERISHABLE FOOD

First, Jesus stresses that real satisfaction comes from relationships and not from things.  He says: “I am the bread of life.”

Underneath this statement is the truth that what is more important in life is persons and not things.  We need to put our energy into relationships because they will satisfy us in ways that material things never can.  

It might be the relationship with your spouse or best friend, with your son or daughter or parent.  Or it might be relating in a respectful and just way with someone at work.

And then, Jesus gets very specific about the relationship that is most important for satisfying our higher needs.  He says: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger.”

In other words, human relationships are important and we need to give priority to them.  But there is an even fuller satisfaction that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ.

A relationship with him through personal prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments will bring us an inner and lasting satisfaction.  And additionally, this relationship with Jesus can positively affect and in that way enter into our other relationships and make them all the more satisfying.

The third source of imperishable bread that Jesus identifies is really the glue that holds all of them together.  The people ask, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”

And he answers, “Believe in the one he sent.”  So, faith, belief is the glue.

With faith, we live with a vision that there is a Creator who is beyond this earth, who made us and toward whom we move;

That there is a Savior who offers us the light and love and life that deep down we all want;

And that there is a Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, who is always with us, at our very core.  This faith is the glue for our earthly journey and brings us a great inner satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

To summarize, Jesus call us to see the visible bread – the miracle of the loaves and even the bread of the Eucharist – as a sign of the imperishable food that he gives us.

He calls us to seek (1) relationships and (2) himself and (3) faith as the food that will satisfy our highest human needs. 

If we do so, we are seeking “food that endures for eternal life and not food that perishes.”