Will the journey be too long for you?

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B


“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” These are the angel’s words to Elijah the prophet—he has been fleeing from the King Ahab and Queen Jezebel who are trying to kill him, and he has all but given up. The angel of the Lord brings him food and drink, but he is so weary and close to despair that the angel has to urge him on to eat enough. Without adequate food, we become weak. If we face a big physical struggle, all the more must we eat well. My uncle Tim ran the Paavo Nurmi Marathon in under 4 hours this morning, and last night I made sure to feed him a plate of pasta! On the Baraga March this past week, we biked over 100 miles, and we had to make sure to eat and drink so we would have fuel for the journey. Simple enough, this principle, something we are all familiar with… but as we spoke of last week, are we prepared to go deeper? Can we apply this knowledge of our physical bodies to our spiritual life by analogy?

As human beings we are uniquely body and soul. Of all God’s creatures, only we have both a material and spiritual component. The angels are pure spirit, and even the highest animals fall short of free will and the ability to choose and love that God has given us. Unless we integrate these two aspects of our united being, we will easily go astray. Both our bodies and our souls lie at the heart of the human condition. God, in His perfect wisdom, has always responded to us on both levels. We will understand and penetrate deeper into the mystery of the Eucharist only if we bring together what we know and experience in our bodies AND our souls, just as we do at every Mass, with the Word, and music, and architecture and art, and vesture, and posture, and, at the very crux of things, food.

Last Sunday we heard of Jesus challenging the people who had come to Him hungry for more to go deeper. What sign might He do to prove to them He is a prophet? Moses called down bread from heaven! Jesus responded, “"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

Notice how the people respond: they grumble—don’t we know this guy, his parents—how can He say such a thing?!! Jesus is familiar to them, they think they know where he’s from, and so they balk. They want something spectacular, surprising, obvious… and Jesus offers them mystery and sacrament. “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me…I am the bread of life… I am the living bread that came down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Every third year our Mother the Church lays out this whole long sixth chapter of John, and I think we see within the reading itself the wisdom of this repetition. Each one of us in different ways is up against some pretty tough struggles: maybe it’s something big that came out of the blue, like cancer, or a divorce… maybe it’s a hidden battle against a temptation that no one else knows about, but whatever it is, God is calling. St. Paul says, “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” Whether it’s rejecting what is evil, or more fully embracing what is good, this is not easy, and it’s not automatic. It’s not a choice we can make once, but a series of choices every single day. Where do we get the power? Where are we to find the stamina? What fuels this journey?

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” When the people of Israel were in the desert, God sent them bread through Moses. When Elijah was fleeing for his life in the desert, God sent him bread through an angel. As we face the desert struggles in our lives, each day, God has not forgotten us. Jesus sees our hearts, our need, our hunger—but in Jesus, God didn’t send just a prophet, an angel, a messenger—God came Himself, and Jesus who is both God and man gives us Himself. “When the afflicted man called out, the Lord heard, and from all his distress he saved him.” Perhaps this is not immediately satisfying—we’d like to see something obvious, something impressive, something overt. But, God knows what we need, and He gives us Himself, He who is the only final and full satisfaction for our whole being, body and soul.

Let me close by inviting you to very seriously ask yourself a question: Have I kept the Lord ’s Day holy? Have I gone to Mass unless it was physically impossible? If you’ve allowed other things to creep into God’s place, if Mass has become occasional or a matter of convenience—you’ve been running on empty. You’ve been attempting to navigate the marathon of life without a spaghetti dinner. You’ve been facing struggles big and small, both visible and hidden, on your own. God doesn’t ask this of you, to fly solo. God doesn’t ask this of you, to step into the ring on an empty stomach. God comes to every altar, to every Mass, waits for you in every tabernacle throughout the world, and He even urges you on through me, through the Church. Don’t stay away, don’t let obstacles keep you from the Bread of Life. “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

+ A. M. D. G. +