Sunday Reading Reflections:

Sunday, August 2, 2009
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I first knew Flor she was a lovely girl but totally lacking in self confidence. She had no initiative and was afraid to contribute to any group activity. Flor, came from a big family. One day she said, "In our family you could work for 24 hours and nobody would ever have a word of thanks or praise for you, but if you made the slightest mistake it was as if another world war had been declared." The deprivation of affirmation that she had experienced made her terrified of any situation in which she may be criticized.


Susan, on the other hand, had experienced that whenever she was with a new group she was the life of the party for a while, but then she noticed that her presence could empty a room in minutes. It emerged that she was a menopausal child - born eight years after the youngest of her six siblings. She was her father's pet and a little doll for her older brothers and sisters. She was always center stage singing or dancing for family guests. With this much affirmation in childhood, she felt in later life that she should always be at the center of the stage. Soon others found this very demanding and avoided her so as not to have to be constantly worshipping at her shrine.

Both Flor and Susan could be described as fixated in a stage of development. Because of the fear of criticism or the need for attention they are not free to move on in the work of life. All of us have bits of Flor and Susan in us.

In the Gospel story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and its aftermath, we see Jesus trying to liberate people not only from their needs but from the fixation that goes with those needs. The crowd understands him as someone who will satisfy their material needs. For this reason they want to make him king. Jesus calls them to a deeper understanding because it is only in faith that they can grasp how he gives himself to them as food for eternal life. The manna given to the Israelites in the desert became spoiled after one day, but what he gives them does not perish. Faith - the letting go of fearful grasping - is necessary in order to receive the gift of life. Faith is first of all an openness to hear and receive and respond to the word. The word that is heard needs to be assimilated so that the Gospel values are appropriated and made part of us. Ultimately, Faith means letting Jesus make his home in us, so that he can transform us in a permanent way. It means making space within for Jesus to not only dwell there but also to let his attitudes and values influence us in our way of life. Jesus tries to lead the disciples to long for this life that lives for ever. The people hunger for living bread but he hungers to live in them to be a bread that is assimilated into them.

Unfortunately, like Flor and Susan, many of us are fixated in our needs. We are too caught up in our wanting. To hear the call of the Lord is to go beyond wanting. In ordinary life needs cannot be ignored, they must be accepted and dealt with and then transcended. Very often though, because of our fixation, after a need is satisfied we rush greedily to satisfy it again and again. We cannot transcend.

When Jesus fed the multitudes he attended to their basic needs but then he challenged them to something higher, to let him become their food, to let him become the source of their attitudes and values; but they were not ready for this and so could not come to fullness of life.

If we look at our own prayer patterns today we will see the same. Prayer of petition and presentation of concerns to the Lord is very legitimate. It is asking God "to be Our God" to be caring and liberating but it often fails to include the prayer that, "we be his people" who live according to his values.

A way of prayer that is open - like meditation - does not ignore needs, is not fixated, but leaves us open to the challenge to our attitudes and values that is given to us when Jesus - the Lord - makes his home in us.