Dear Parishioners,
Keto diets, Mediterranean diets, Low carb or Low Fat diets, Vegan diets. The list goes on and on and new diet fads are added day by day. It can be very confusing and if we are truthful most of them might work for a time and then they get old. Back to the pizza, hamburgers, fries and every other imaginable junk food. So what happens to make it all go haywire? Most of our approaches to food tend to arise out of crisis and unhealthy approaches to food. Think about it. In the 6th Chapter of John’s Gospel also referred to as the Bread of Life discourse which have been reflecting on for the past few weeks, Jesus Himself say that those who ate the manna in the wilderness eventually died.
Jesus told the hungry people “I am the Bread of Life” He actually used symbols from the physical, tangible world to help them and us understand who He is. In effect, Jesus was saying that food is a metaphor for Him the very incarnation of God. If we are able to see what food does for us physically, we begin to understand what He does for us spiritually. So often, we fail to make the connection between the food we eat and our spiritual nourishment. We talk about comfort foods and seem to believe that they nourish our hearts as much as any miraculous bread from heaven.
As we have reflected on that which is the source and summit of who we are as Catholics, we need to see in each meal we eat the reality that we are being nourished but also to realize that such nourishment is temporal. We need to adjust our thinking in such a way as to see the physical food we eat as pointing to the divine reality of the only eternal food. Don’t eat fat, Don’t eat carbohydrates. Don’t eat meat. Don’t eat sugar. Now I am not advocating that we all go nuts and start eating anything and everything. What I am trying to say that when we allow the everyday meals we eat to remind us of the finest meal we could ever hope for, then I know we will be better able to grasp the absolute truth that Jesus is really present to us in the Eucharist. “Taste and see the Goodness of the Lord.”
-Deacon John
