18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Real Hunger Behind our Cravings
In a recent visit to my doctor, the good doctor told me to undergo blood tests. Even though I told her that I think I am in the pink of health, I need to undergo these tests because of my age; just to be sure, she said. True enough, after a series of blood tests, it turns out that I am prediabetic, after all. The doctor warned me that if I do not make any changes in my lifestyles, I will certainly go into the diabetic stage. This was a wake-up call for me. The doctor referred me to a dietitian and a physiotherapist which I was more than happy to see. This was to show that I was serious in my wish to undergo lifestyle change. The dietitian provided me with a diet plan and the physiotherapist gave me a set of exercises.
The most important realization I learned from the consultations with the doctor, dietitian and physiotherapist is our foremost craving for carbohydrates. Just rightly so, since carbohydrates are our body’s main source of fuel. The craving for carbohydrates, however, has dominated our diet–talk about rice, fastfood, junk foods, soft drinks, sweets, pasta, bread, and most of the refined and processed food. The craving for carbohydrates may give us the mirage of a full and hearty stomach but in reality a very unhealthy body. On another level, our craving for carbohydrates may actually serve as a smokescreen for the hunger that our bodies truly craved for like vitamins, minerals and protein found in raw fruits, vegetable, fish and meat.
Why am I dabbling about nutrition and health here; this is suppose to be a reflection on the Sunday readings and liturgy anyway? The point I am trying to drive at is that the craving for carbohydrates is a perfect example of many of our cravings in life. Many times, our immediate cravings is just a mask for what we truly hunger or thirst for. Underneath all our cravings are the real cravings that our body and soul truly seeks. We crave for many things—food, sex, romance, alcohol, drugs, riches, power, position, knowledge. These cravings may actually be a seeking of a more profound reality or meaning in life even the divine. The Scottish writer, Bruce Marshall, for example, in his novel, The World, the Flesh and Father Smith, has said through the book’s protagonist, Fr. Smith, “The man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”
The readings for this 18th Sunday tackles the question of our cravings, or our slavery to our cravings. In the first reading from the book of Exodus, the Israelites, who are marching through the desert, are hungry. Thus, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron. So great was their hunger that they longed for the ‘good old days’ of slavery in Egypt, when at least they had their fill of bread. Overwhelmed by their hunger, they opted for the slavery and forgot all about the freedom and liberation that 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!
In the same way, in the journey of our lives, many of us remain captives rather than free because we chose to remain in our cravings. We are so caught up by our cravings that we think that they are what we truly seek. But our cravings blind us from what we really seek which is freedom and liberation. We exchange freedom for bondange of our cravings for it demands change in our lifestyles. In the Second Reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (4:17, 20-24) 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.
