Thursday, August 02, 2012

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


18th 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.”

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