All over the world, the biggest news of the week, and I foresee in the week to come at least, are the olympic games being held in Tokyo. Top of the olympic news is the first ever gold for the Philippines won by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz in the 55 kg class.
How Hidilyn won the gold is a story worth a hollywood movie. I’m pretty sure that many has already heard and inspired by her story beginning from her humble origins, to how she caught up or how weightlifting caught up with her (as she herself calls it), to how she surpassed all challenges and hardships through sheer hard work and discipline. What motivated her all the way up to winning the gold is her hunger for glory which she dedicated to all the Filipino people. Hidilyn saw that it was not just her hunger that propelled her to victory. Behind all the trials and difficulties of her training, God was guiding her and making her strong every single hurdle she passed.
The readings for this 18th Sunday in ordinary time, tackles the question of hunger and cravings. We crave for many things in life—food, material things, sex, romance, alcohol, drugs, riches, power, position, knowledge. Often times, however, we stop and become stucked at these immediate cravings. What we fail to see is that these cravings are actually signs of our true hunger and seeking of a more profound reality or meaning in life—the divine. Underneath all our cravings are the real cravings that our body and soul truly seeks.
In the first reading from the book of Exodus, the Israelites, who are marching through the desert, are hungry. And so they grumbled against Moses and Aaron who led them into the desert on their way to the promised land. So great was their hunger that they forgot all about their goal and longed for the ‘good old days’ of slavery in Egypt, where at least they had their fill of bread. Overwhelmed by their hunger, they opted for the slavery and forgot all about the dream of freedom and liberation the Lord has prepared for them in the promise land.
Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt,
as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!
But you had to lead us into this desert
to make the whole community die of famine!
What this story taught us is that like the Israelites, the immediacy of our hunger have led us to become stuck with our immediate hunger. We are so caught up by our hunger that we think that they are what we are and what we truly seek. But sometimes our immediate hunger is just a stepping stone to what we really seek which is freedom and liberation. But we exchange freedom for bondange to our cravings because it demands in us a change in our lifestyles.
A change in our lifestyles is also what St. Paul in the Second Reading from his letter to the Ephesians (4:17, 20-24) talked about. St. Paul called the Ephesians to a spiritual revolution (a drastic change). Paul urges them to “put on the new self.”
you should put away the old self of your former way of life,
corrupted through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new self,
created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.
In the Gospel, the crowd were pursuing Jesus, looking for concrete signs to satisfy their immediate needs. In the previous Sunday, we saw how they have already been fed during the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes. They now see Jesus as the giver of bread. But they are hungrier and demanded more bread from Jesus. Jesus challenges them, however, to look at the deeper meaning of what they seek. He also calls them to see these events as signs of the revelation of himself as the “more” for which they look, the “more” that truly satisfies, the “more” they have already been given. In a series of question and answer, Jesus led the people to seek from their cravings to himself: his life, words, deeds and the proclamation of the good news.
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
God is the God of liberation and freedom. The freedom that Jesus offers is the freedom that will satisfy our true hunger. But we need to see Jesus as the fulfillment of our cravings. We need to find Jesus at the end of all our seekings and aspirations.
This is what St. Augustine experienced in his life. Augustine was desperately searching for fulfillment in a succession of cravings: excessive pleasures, false religions, philosophy, dissipation and distractions. Augustine’s life is the story of a homeless person’s journey to his true home. When he finally arrived home, he finds both His own identity and God’s. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you” (Confessions, Bk I. Par. 1).
This is what we celebrate in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, we find our true home. We find Jesus feeding our hunger and quenching our thirst. In the Eucharist, we taste the goodness of the Lord, which is sweeter than wine or honey (Ps 19:10, Ex 16:31) and fulfilling than all our heart’s desires.
Copiosa 