Choosing the Living Bread That Came
Down from Heaven
At various periods in my life I have tried to take an assessment of where I have been and where I am going. We all do this exercise, knowingly or unknowingly. We evaluate our choices and we either deem the good choices or poor choices. We do this at every age. As children, we sometimes rebel/rebelled at having to do homework or prepare for tests. Using short-term thinking, we would try to avoid the prescribed effort to learn properly and we would be disappointed at our choice of avoiding quite attainable work when we received grades that were less than we would have desired. This had the effect of us resolving to do better next time and to restore our grades- which would happen if we kept our resolve.
As young adults, we are suddenly confronted with such freedoms!
Many of these freedoms we believe we have been entitled to,
(always watch out for what follows the word “entitled”). I remember
that when I had a home of my own, I initially looked forward to all
of the fun times that I would have playing music and spending time
with friends. Before, my dreams of unbridled revelry could be
put into effect, I stopped and reflected upon the responsibilities
of maintaining one’s own home. I had to keep a good job to pay
for my lifestyle, and to clean and take care of what I had looked
forward to having as my own for so long. Not one of my blessings
was without responsibility. When my brother and I had a boat and
would venture out to the San Francisco Bay, I realized that I spent
more time performing maintenance work and earning enough resource
to pay for the boat and larger maintenance and insurance than I did
using the boat. All of my examples so far are ones that though worthy
by earthly standards are without significance as enduring in the sight of
God.
As an adult, I went through the occasional exercise of evaluating choices.
I concluded that though my choices to date haven’t been bad, I was not
dedicating the proper effort in –in proportion to all of my time, to
relationship with God. This one poor choice was fatal to my
chance of salvation, despite all other choices! I decided to change
this situation. We must seek God- not simply pass God by on the
street with a casual “Hello”. So I decided to seek him with
a greater sense of being called, as we all are.This effort was
has been rewarded more than any earthly endeavor could
provide The boat has come and gone, the home living has
been replaced by rectory living, but the choice of God has
endured and sustained me. I share this personal journey of
faith with you, my parish family, hoping that you will learn
what took me too long to discover and is this Sunday’s
Gospel message. In this “Year of Faith” proclaimed by
Pope Benedict, the purpose is for us to seek Christ and
right relationship with him.
We are to seek Christ as the one who gave His life that
we might have life. Doesn’t that effort deserve more than
just a passing greeting as we seem preoccupied with earthly
concerns? It begins with our definitive choice to follow Christ!!!
Fr. Mike
