14-Aug-2018 Dear Friend, It is said we become what we eat and we know that what we eat becomes part of ourselves. We become especially conscious of this after a serious illness, when we feel weak and we feel the need to eat to strengthen our bodies through the food we take in. We want to have not only chicken soup but something more solid, in fact anything that will give us the energy we need to carry on. Jesus drew energy and life from His Father. "My food is to do the will of my Father." Where does energy come from? Have a ‘God energized’ weekend! -Fr. Jude Sunday Refl. 20th Sunday “Everyone who eats this bread will live forever!” 19-Aug-2018Proverbs 9: 1-6; Eph. 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58; Today’s reading is a small portion of the Book of Proverbs which tries to give us words of God’s wisdom to live by. The reading imagines Wisdom as a woman who has provided a plentiful table of meat and wine. All who lack wisdom are invited to come to the banquet where something wonderful awaits them. The point the reading is making is that we have a choice to make: living according to the wisdom of God or living out our own foolish ways. It surprises us that God offers us his wisdom free of cost, we only have to come to him and it is ours for the asking. Will we live our life in partnership with God or manage on our own? Just in CaseLiving as we did in a congested and bustling city, my mother arranged with a teenage girl who lived next door to walk me home at the end of the day. For this arduous responsibility, the girl was paid five cents a day, or a grand total of a quarter a week. In the second grade I became irritated that our poor family was giving this neighbor girl so much money, and I offered a deal to mom. "Look", I said, "I’ll walk myself to school and if you give me a nickel a week, I will be extra careful. You can keep the other twenty cents and we’ll all be better off." For the next two years I walked to and from school all by myself. Years later when we were enjoying a family party, I bragged about my characteristic independence and, in a grandiose fashion, reminded my family of how I had been able to take care of myself, even as a small boy. It was then that my mother laughed and told me the whole story. "Did you really think that you were alone?" she asked. "Every morning when you left for school, I left with you. I walked behind you all the way. When you got out of school at 3.30 in the afternoon, I was there. I always kept myself hidden, but I was there and followed you all the way home. I just wanted to be there for you in case you needed me. Mom was always there for me…Tony Campolo from ‘What My Parents Did Right’ In today’s Gospel Jesus proclaims that He is more important than anything else. "I am the living bread from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Here unlike the Israelites who ate manna, the food prepared and provided by God; here we do not have food provided by God, but God himself becomes the food that sustains us. Unlike food that becomes part of us when we eat, we are invited to become part of God by receiving His son in the Eucharist. The people refused to accept the invitation of Jesus saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" We, too, in so many ways have the same reaction. I think I can manage most of the time; I only need him in emergencies. I have enough resources of my own to get along. “Why bring God in the picture?"Upon the mountain top lived a kind and gentle God and in the village far below, lived his people. They were a very busy people, with books to read, games to play and many meetings to attend to. They seldom thought about the kind and gentle God, so far away did he seem. No one had seen his face and some doubted he was even there at all. One day, God looked on his own and wanted very much that they should be friends. ‘I must do some small things’ he thought, ‘to show them that I care.’ And each day he sent a messenger to the village, a pack upon his back and in the pack was a gift for everyone in the village. Each day the gifts arrived and each day the people ran with open arms to gather them. Soon, however, they got used to being gifted. Some began to grab the gifts from the pack, some took more than they were meant to have, and some complained of the gifts that were too small. Far up on the mountain sat God. Day after lonely day he waited for a word of thanks, for a friendly word, or just recognition that he was there. But no word came. ‘If only I can’t tell them that I am’, God thought, ‘how can I tell them I am a friend, and that I want to give them friendship most of all?’ And then his eyes lit up. ‘I know’, he said, ‘I’ll give a party for my friends below. I’ll give a party and invite them all. Surely if they spend some time with me, and learn to know how much I care, then of course they will come to know that I am their friend.’ And so the invitations were sent out. Some just laughed and said, ‘That’s not for me! And some said, ‘Spend a day with God? No way!’ And some were very busy with their chores and said, ‘some other time maybe, but not today.’ Some were tempted. ‘Maybe it is for real, and maybe God wants to be my friend.’ Timidly, they signed up for the day. But when the others laughed, they became embarrassed, and withdrew their names. The party day arrived, but no one showed up. And in his mountain home, the kind God sat. ‘I only want to give them love’, he said. ‘How can I tell them? Make them understand? Is there no one who wants me for their friend?’ And below the people laughed and cried. They worked and played and died. And seldom if ever did they think of the gentle God who loved them so very much.Jack McArdle from ‘And that’s the Gospel truth’ Touching the body of Christ!Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a rule that when a newcomer arrived to join her Order, the Missionaries of Charity, the very next day the newcomer had to go to the Home of the Dying. One day a girl came from outside India to join, so Mother Teresa said to her: ‘You saw with what love and care the priest touched Jesus in the Host during Mass. Now go to the Home for the Dying and do the same, because it is the same Jesus you will find there in the broken bodies of our poor.’ Three hours later the newcomer came back and, with a big smile, said to her, ‘Mother, I have been touching the body of Christ for three hours.’ ‘How? What did you do?’ Mother Teresa asked her. ‘When I arrived there,’ she replied, ‘they brought in a man who had fallen into a drain, and been there for some time. He was covered with dirt and had several wounds. I washed him and cleaned his wounds. As I did so I knew I was touching the body of Christ.’ -To be able to make this kind of connection we need the help of the Lord himself. It is above all in the Eucharist that he gives us this help.Flor McCarthy, in 'New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies' “He didn’t know I had made my communion…”I like the story of little orphan Joe. Joe went to be examined by the orphanage doctor. When he came back the nun asked, “What did the doctor say to you Joe?” And Joe answered, “He said to me, “What a miserable little specimen you are.” And Joe added, “But, Sister, I don’t think he knew I had made my first communion.” -You see that’s what gives us value. You and I don’t need to fight and fume to win love and respect. For God who made us likes us so very much –even if really we are not very likeable –that he comes to us in communion and comradeship.Edwin White in ‘Quotes and Anecdotes’ Places at the tableOnce there was a wealthy merchant who had his newly married son and his wife living in his household. The son had a kind heart and devoted himself to charitable works, helping every poor person who asked for his assistance. In time the young wife gave birth to a son. In honor of the occasion, the happy grandfather arranged a great feast. Shortly before festivities were about to begin, the son asked, ‘Tell me, father, what arrangements have you made for the seating of the guests? If you do the conventional thing and seat the rich at the head table and the poor near the door, it will distress me. You know very well how I love the poor. As this is my celebration, let me honor those who get no honor. Promise me, then, to seat the poor at the head table and the rich at the door.’ His father listened attentively and replied, ‘My son, it is difficult to change the world. Look at it this way: Why do poor people come to a feast? Because they are hungry and would like to eat a good meal. And why do rich people come to a feast? To get honor. They don’t come to eat, because they have enough at home. ‘Now just imagine what would happen if you seated the poor at the head table. They would sit there, very self-consciously, feeling everybody’s eyes on them, and so would be ashamed to eat their fill. And what they’d eat they wouldn’t enjoy. Don’t you think it would be better for their sake, to eat to their heart’s content without being ashamed? ‘Then again, suppose I agreed to do what you’re asking and seat the rich at the door, don’t you think they’d feel insulted? They don’t come for the sake of the food, but for the honor. And if you don’t give them that what will they get?’ -The Eucharist is the banquet Jesus provides for his followers. All of us come to this banquet hungry. Here all of us are nourished and all of us are honored, because here every place is a place of honor.Flor McCarthy in ‘Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ ‘Alive’Piers Paul Read’s bestseller ‘Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors’ tells the true story of Uruguayan rugby player who chartered a plane to fly from Uruguay to Chile to compete in a tournament. Flying out on October 12th, 1972, their airplane crashed over the snow-capped Andes Mountains. Out of forty passengers only a handful survived. Lost in the snowy Andes for two months, when all food supplies were exhausted, the weaker players sensed that death was near. Thus, they begged their companions to eat their flesh after they were dead. Surviving on the flesh of their friends, the few who remained alive tearfully narrated how their friends wanted them to survive by consuming their flesh. – The Uruguayan rugby players offered their flesh to friends after death so that they could stay alive. Jesus challenges us to be flesh-and-blood Christians before death so that everything, everyone, everywhere may be fully ‘Alive’.Francis Gonsalves in ‘Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds’ May our receiving of the Eucharist make our lives more sacrificial like Jesus himself! Fr. Jude Botelho botelhoj...@gmail.com PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections.These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you.
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