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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