What's for dinner?

I struggle with my weight.  I've always been a large person and had a love/hate relationship with food.  I guess the main reason is that, like most mortals, I love the taste of those things which are bad for me.  That is why we try not to keep them in the house.  Then I find myself wandering through the kitchen looking for something to eat and not being able to find something that fits the bill.   I open the pantry, I stare into it, I close it.   I repeat that same procedure with the refrigerator, the freezer, and the cabinets.   Eventually, back to the pantry.  Soon we are picking up the phone and ordering something or going out to some restaurant.  It's not a good thing for my weight when I do that... I don't need a 'buffet' anything.

We take that for granted, don't we?  As we were driving to Ohio this past weekend we got stuck in the traffic for Lollapalooza and the baseball game.  For hours we were literally stopping and going, moving only a few feet every minute.  My daughter and I were being silly and waving at people we didn't know, pretending to be royalty travelling through our kingdom.  I noticed that on one of the subway platforms one of my subjects was digging through the trash for something to eat.  There I was, severely over weight, not realizing how good I really have it.  Here is a man, as important and loved by God as I am, digging through the waste for food.   I, who have plenty to eat, often ignore the buffet before me because it's not good enough.  This man, who digs through the trash for that which I throw away, is happy with anything he can find to eat.

The sad part is we do that with relationships as well.   Society tells us that sex is just something we do.   It tells our kids that masturbation not only feels good, but somehow is healthy for them.   It encourages porn as a way to spice up things.  Then it tells us that marriage is a thing of the past and that relationships were not meant to be permanent or even monogamous.   If it feels good do it!  That is the mantra of many these days. They look at the Church and it's buffet and simply pick and choose, or better yet walk away to another church that can give them that which seems to fill their sensual pleasures in a more pleasing way.  Crumbs.   But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 NABRE)

Even more wretched is that we do that with our relationship with God.   We would rather choose to sit in a chair and play a game than to go to Mass.  To spend Friday night at a Baseball game, rather than at Adoration.   We would rather not have the permanence of the Covenant but want all the benefits.  The music isn't good enough, the sermons are too boring, confession makes us feel uncomfortable, and that one guy breaths so loudly that you hear it over the microphone from the Choir.   So we walk away from the pantry and look for a new source to feed us.   We settle for crumbs, crumbs that sometimes are beautiful and fulfilling, but they are just a glimpse of the banquet that God has set for us.   He offers so much more than we can even pretend to understand.   He offers us a glimpse into reality, a reality so far and beyond the things we detect with our senses and into a realm that exists outside of time.   Eating crumbs is good, but why not go to the table and sit with the Master?

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease." 

A reflection on the daily Mass readings for Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time: August 3rd 2016.   Jeremiah 31:1-7;  Responsorial from Jeremiah 31; A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew 15:21-28

The Junk on the Bottom

When I was a child I used to love going fishing with my dad.   I remember one particular trip in which we used a net to gather shad to use as 'live' bait.  My dad would stand on the front of the boat working patiently to get the net just right in his hand.  Then he'd throw it out in a graceful arc and it would land open in the water.  He'd try to teach us to do the same but I was never patient, always rushing and just ended up throwing a clump of string into the lake.  Then we would draw it back in.   Sometimes it would have shad in it.  At other times a piece of tree branch, some algae, slime, or even the occasional piece of garbage.  There is something about going out and doing something together with a parent that just builds memories.

To me this parable from Jesus reminds us of our own spiritual lives.  God loves us just as we are, and asks us to come as we are.   The thing is: He loves us too much to leave us there.   He wants us to grow.  To become more Holy.  To become Saints.  Our lives are often like a net.  Everything that we are dragged by leaves an impression, a memory.   What we listen to, what we see, what we read... all of this influences our mind, our memory.  It is indiscriminate on what it picks up.  A detail here, a smell there, a vision here.  We need to be vigilant in seeking out those things which are good for us, and avoiding that which is bad.  We spiritually have to search through our nets looking for that which is food, and discarding that which is not.

The other thing that I think is probably most important is to remember that we are not the Master.  We are but servants on the boat.  Like my dad on the boat when I was so young, we aren't even able to cast the net without His help.   It is Christ who teaches us how to sort through this mess called life.   He is the one who can see clearly from above, while we are stuck with our simple tunnel vision.  He teaches us through the Church, through the Sacred Scriptures, and through holy women and men how to live this life to it's fullest.  That's why it is so important to spend time with Him.  To learn from Him.  To get in the boat and ask questions.   To sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary and just rest with the King of Kings.

The Old Testament reading for today talks about a potter working with clay.  Clay is hard to work with when it's dry and cracked, but if you add enough water to it, it will become supple and giving.  Are you being clay?  Or stone?  Are you listening to the voice of the Lord and being pliant and bending to give way to His will?  Or are you struggling against it?   Fighting to keep your own way?  Enough water and it will feel like you are drowning.. the trials of this life often feel that way don't they?   Those trials are opportunities to be molded.. to grow... to push out those things which are standing in the way of being good clay.   Don't let the voice of the enemy convince you that you are part of the refuse, the junk caught in the net that needs to be thrown away.  You are called to be a Saint!  Don't think of that as something meant for someone else!  It's for YOU!  It's for me!  Let's do this together!

Being a Saint doesn't mean being perfect.. it doesn't mean never making a mistake or falling... what it does mean is being open to the molding of God and growing.. it means not staying as we are.. but growing towards Heaven.  It means trying! Will you try with me?  I want to go to Heaven and I want you to be there with me!  We are more complete together!  Remember when you start to feel like you aren't worthy, when you start to feel like you are part of the junk, that when my dad would see something that he wanted to throw back.. I often saw a treasure, something I could make into something.. something that my child like eyes saw as important and worth notice.   Have a child like faith in God, because He saw enough in you to send His only Son to die in your place, that you might be able to spend eternity with Him.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A reflection on the readings for Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time: July 28th, 2016.  Jeremiah 18:1-6, Psalm 146, A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew 13:47-53