We are all on a spiritual journey. We would not be living at a monastery or spending significant time at a monastery if we were not following a deeper longing of the soul. In the first reading for this Sunday’s Eucharist (1 Kings 19:4-8), we find the prophet Elijah fleeing for his life for his words of truth, God’s prophetic word expressed through him to his people are not received. And he has had it! What does he do? He lies down for he has had enough; he sighs and says to God ‘Take my life for I am no better than my ancestors’. He then falls asleep, precious sleep. Then a Divine intervention in the form of an angel touches him and says, ‘Elijah get up and eat’. There is nourishing food supplied, he eats and lays down again. God will not abandon his servant and once again the angel of the Lord intervenes, touches Elijah saying, ‘Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you’! And there is food, sustaining food given for the journey. Then, Elijah ‘strengthened by that food’ continues the journey, forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb. He continues his journey, renewed with an expanded heart and mind ready to follow wherever God calls him.
There are times in our lives, on this spiritual journey, when we have given our all, done what we could do in serving and it all seems to go to naught. We may cry out: ‘It is enough’, ‘I have had it’, ‘It is not worth all this effort’, ‘I’m through with this’. And we lie down, exhausted, close our eyes and fall into a twilight sleep. Our crying out to God is heard, for it is a cry out of the depths of our being; it is not an egocentric demand; it is a crying out where one feels helpless and one’s energy feels depleted in the moment. We may recall this saying from Isaiah (58:9), “When you call, I shall answer”, says the Lord. And so it is, the cry of the soul is heard.
In an essay titled ‘Carried By a Strong Arm’ Edith Stein wrote: “The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience…is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience,…I am sustained in my being, and that in my fleeting being I share in enduring being. In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely” (Essential Writings, p.68). We witness this tension of transient being and enduring being in Elijah’s journey to the mountain of Horeb. And it is true for us as well. Our human lives are sustained by the Divine life, we share, we participate, we are sustained in the eternal, enduring Being of God.
We can visualize the enduring Being of God in the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse of this Sunday’s gospel from St. John (6:41-51). Jesus offers his body, his flesh for the life of the world…With the incarnation God has become incarnate in Christ and now incarnate in us. Fully human, fully divine, God has become flesh of our flesh. What is Jesus saying when he tells us “I am the bread of life”, that “my flesh is real food”. He goes before us as the way, the truth, and the life…his food is his incarnate Word, the enfleshed Word of Divine love, compassion and forgiveness. This is the eternal, enduring Being of God.
The scripture scholar, Fr. John Donahue, in commenting on this gospel wrote: “The bread that Jesus gives as his ‘flesh for the life of the world’ is what Jesus teaches and embodies, principally the love command” (Hearing the Word of God, p.101). Let me repeat: ‘The bread that Jesus gives is what he teaches and embodies, principally the love command’. Again, the offering of Jesus of his ‘flesh for the life of the world’ is embodied principally in the love command, that is, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self; and this love command is to extend to one’s enemies.
Our transient being is not separate from the enduring, eternal Being of God. When we love as Jesus loved we are abiding in the enduring Being of God. The body of Christ that we receive at the Eucharist reveals the Being of God, which is love, redemptive love, healing and forgiving love. The Eucharist is the sacrament of God’s enduring, eternal Being, which is Love. What a profound mystery and gift that we have been given.
Sr. Kathy DeVico, Abbess
Chapter Talk – 19th Sunday of the Year – August 11, 2024, cycle-B
