Dear People of God, I want to help you
understand and appreciate what is the most important aspect of our Christian
life … our faith, as acknowledged, proclaimed, and understood, in and by
the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; and the question is: what can Catholics do to realize (as saint J.H. Newman meant it) their faith?
In today’s Gospel there were some Jews
suffering from an endemic uncertainty;
What
must we do to be doing the works of God?
Or, to put it more clearly for our modern ears: “What must we be doing
to be sure that we are doing the works of God?”
They wanted concrete works they could do, and
having done them, feel better about themselves
as servants of the God of Israel; thus, inadvertently -- at the devil’s
deception -- they were seeking to centre
themselves yet more on themselves. To
them, we are told that, Jesus answered, by offering them FAITH in Himself:
This
is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He (God) has sent.
But those Jews were spiritually sick, and
uncertainty seized them yet again:
but how can we be sure that what you (Jesus) are now saying is the
truth? And
so, they asked a sign of Jesus: bread from heaven as had been sent to their
fathers -- they liked to think -- by Moses: bread they could see, gather, count, measure, and assess.
But Jesus had far greater bread -- His Father’s
true bread from heaven -- to offer them.
And so, once again He tried to draw them out of themselves by explaining
to them:
The Bread of God is He Who comes down from
heaven and gives life to the
world.
However, not appreciating what Jesus said, they kept on thinking of
some type of super Mosaic bread that would fall down again, as it were, into
their laps:
Sir, give us this bread always.
The bread of which Jesus was speaking,
however, was not some THING to be gathered up, but someONE -- to be sought through FAITH:
Whoever COMES TO ME – the bread of
life – shall not hunger, and whoever BELIEVES IN ME shall never thirst.
Dear People of God, how many people do you know
today like those Jews of old who cannot die to themselves or to their endless
questioning; people who cannot face up
to a God Who sent His Son to commit Himself, even to death, for their
salvation?
Our main purpose for today, however, is rather
to look at believing Catholic disciples of Jesus who want to become more aware of their need for Jesus; disciples who feel,
should we say, a certain emptiness
with regard to the reality of their faith: “I fulfil the duties and privileges of our faith, but that’s it … I feel myself to
be just there, doing just that, but not being drawn, led further, to anything deeper, anything more.
Perhaps
I can put it this way: Jesus … I know, committed Himself for me, and I
am for Jesus, but I do not feel myself committed in His way.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the fact
is that God -- by His Most Holy Spirit -- is actually making you aware of the supreme disease
afflicting Mother Church and her Christian people of the Western industrial
world … the disease of a dangerously nominal faith, a faith that can so easily slip-off-and-leave-you when temptation comes along; a disease afflicting too many, who,
in the course of their ever-so-busy days, think little – if at all -- of God.
Look again at Jesus in today’s Gospel reading where
He tried to help those Jews -- fixated
on the bread with which He had just fed the 5,000 -- to understand something of
the difference between the ‘bread’ --
that is, the manna – sent by God to calm a rebellious people escaping through
the desert from Egypt to their promised land, and the ‘true bread from heaven’ that was the ultimate
purpose for Jesus’ mission as Messiah:
I am the bread
of life; the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever comes to ME, whoever believes
in ME, shall not hunger.
Dear People of God, the Holy Eucharist is
Mother Church’s most sublime treasure, but it is not a thing we possess;
rather is it a gate that we should enter, through which we must go (cf.
John 10:9-18, 27).
Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘I am the
door of (for) the sheep. If anyone enters by this door he will be
saved and will go in and out and find pasture … My sheep hear My voice and I
know them and they follow Me. I give
them eternal life.’
Yes, our Catholic faith is the door through
which we should enter and leave the sheepfold – ourselves in Mother Church – and live our‘vocational life’ in
the world today by following Jesus.
Imagine those sheep following the good shepherd whose voice they
recognise … they saw some town dogs, an odd wolf in the fields, even a bear
perhaps with David; those sheep ,must
have most certainly trusted in their shepherd to walk such ways. Do you, dear People of God,
trust in your shepherd Who wants to lead you through this world to your true home
in heaven? If so then tell Him, activate
your faith by telling Jesus, I TRUST YOU.
NOW YOU ARE STARTING TO HAVE ACTIVE, NO LONGER
DORMANT, FAITH.
Other sheep might
have thought that their shepherd had led them to some lovely pasture that day …
have you nothing to thank your God, your Saviour for, in your experience of
life ? You have?? Then TELL HIM … My God, dear Lord, I
THANK YOU.
Other sheep could well have come to realize that, ‘Just
hearing our shepherd’s voice, just being able to walk behind him in confidence
as he plays his flute, is all I want’. Are
you, my fellow Catholics and Christians, able to find yourself somehow satisfied,
even joyfully, with being able to follow Jesus in the confidence and security of
knowing His truth? You are??
Then TELL HIM … Jesus, Lord and Saviour, I LOVE YOU!
YOUR FAITH IS NOW FULLY ACTIVE … if YOU
persevere in thus seeking, seeing, and responding to the goodness of God in your life.
Don’t look for many such contacts with the
Holy Spirit working in you; just make your words -- I thank You, I trust You, I
love You (or whatever few words you may have chosen for yourselves) --
as totally sincere and simple as you can. Do that, and your faith is indeed living and will
make you vitally alive and responsive to the One Who loves you totally in
heaven, where He never ceases to intercede on your behalf, just as His Spirit
accompanies us all throughout our life on earth to form us more and more in the
likeness of Jesus for the Father.
Put off your old self (and its constant worries) and
be renewed in the spirit of your minds.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, and be thankful. And whatever
you do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3:15-17)
For it is God Who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13–15)
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