Recently a friend was venting. After several months of ill health, this normally thoughtful and evenhanded woman found herself snapping at caregivers and well-intended visitors — much to her surprise and dismay. She said she had really learned something about herself, and also finally understood her deceased mother, who had done the same when tested by ill health. In our first (Hebrew Scripture) reading from Exodus, the Hebrews are being tested. Having escaped slavery in Egypt, they set out for the promised land. Hope and euphoria reigned. But now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, lacking food. They quickly lost faith in their leaders and in the providence of God to provide for them. They grumbled. Isn’t this a familiar pattern? As we move through life, trials come in many forms. Even in situations that seem great — new jobs, marriages or other commitments, welcoming a child, finally getting to retire — hope and euphoria sooner or later wear off. In our Gospel today, Jesus’ listeners are asking him to work another loaves-and-fishes miracle, like he did in last week’s Gospel. Jesus says: Do not work for food that perishes but food that endures for eternal life … I am the bread of life. Today many people we know do not belong to a Church, including many former Catholics. Faith that endures, like yours and mine, is both God’s gift but also our responsibility. Do we know our own spiritual hungers? Have we worked at our relationship with the Lord so that we feel we can trust and communicate with this Leader when we must walk through a desert? Have we nourished a relationship with a human listener who can help us in our spiritual life? For us Catholics, weekly Eucharist is the bread that helps our faith endure throughout life. We join our own spiritual hungers and anxieties and trials with those of everyone else who is there at Mass with us, and we open ourselves to that bread of life that is Jesus the Christ, whom A.N. Whitehead named “the fellow sufferer who understands.”
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
