Gospel Reflections for August 5 2018
You are what you eat.
Nutritionists have been making that claim for some time. The food you eat every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and even all those snacks!) become part of your body. Everything you eat eventually makes up the cells that make your body work …and weigh! If you eat well, you give yourself a better chance at good health. If you do not, well, your body will tell you in ways you can unfortunately feel that are all too familiar!
Those diets are about what kind of food you take in to yourself. Today’s Gospel offers a different “diet” that just is the opposite. It is the kind of “food” that you give away!
While your body is nourished by the foods that you take in, your soul is nourished by what you give out to others.
When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, food miraculously fell from Heaven for them to eat. However, it was only just enough food for each day. That is echoed in the Our Father prayer, where we pray “Give us this day …our daily bread.”
Our Lord offers grace to you only for your immediate circumstances and what you are facing in your life right now. After all, it is only right now that you can actually make decisions and direct your life one way or another. This is precisely the time you need God’s grace within you, not yesterday or tomorrow …but right now.
This parallels the way your body metabolizes food, which is also directed at your immediate needs, and the energy you need right now. However, If food energy is not used, say by inactivity, it is stored as fat. How much of that do you want! Our bodies were designed to use our food for today’s mission from Our Lord.
God designed you to use the food you take in today in to energize you precisely to give of yourself in love to those around you. There is no better “work” that you can do. The Eucharist is also your “daily bread” that helps you do this with God’s blessings. Don’t let this day slip by without using both for some good.
You are what you eat, both from the regular food you take in and the offerings in love that you give out to those around you. That is truly a balanced meal that produces great spiritual health!
God Bless!
Fr. Dave
Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee your precious commentary!!!” You are what you eat” and our precious Holy Eucharist is Jesus living in us and we are to radiate His LOVE to others!!! Loveeeeee it!!! and we love you for your beautiful love for our precious Jesus!! We must liveeeeeeeee His loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Have a beautiful day in our loving Jesus and our beautiful Blessed Mother’s love!!!
Loveeeeeeeeee, franca and Dick
Thank you!
Fr Dave,
Thank you for your reading today
A great start to the day!If it is in Mass, our prayers, and readings we are blessed …a feeding of ourselves & passing on that love to others!
Have a great day filled with joy!
Kathy
Well said!
Amen. Give us this bread always.
Amen!
Dear Father Dave,
Comparing our lives in this century to the lives we read about in the Bible is difficult because we’re so vastly different. Yet having read your synopsis today of this weekend’s Gospel, comparing is exactly what I’ve been trying to do. If our contemporary society were suddenly transported back in time, could we survive? Would we have the necessary faith to receive our daily bread? Could the Biblical people live in our fast-paced society? Would they find the Holy Eucharist? I’m certain of this much: life is very short and to live our days in faith and love as best as we can is essential to a full and happy life. To come full circle, I suppose it shouldn’t matter too much what time-frame God placed us in as long as we have “the essentials.”
As always, thank you for posting such a reflective message.
God bless!
Kathleen
Thank you. You raise great questions comparing our time with the Gospel times.
A wise reflection about the body and soul needing good nourishment, Fr. Dave!.
When we sit down to a holiday meal, it all tastes so good that it’s easy to eat more than
we should. But with Jesus we can eat and eat, and it won’t affect our health.
In fact, the more of Jesus we feed on, the healthier we will be!
“We become what we eat”
,
Well said!
Amen!
Brilliant. Thank you Fr Dave, and yes that does make sense 😉
You are welcome!
Just back from Mass at SPB…great sermon as well.. 2 different approaches but… the same message…Hope all is well with you Fr. Dave
All is well, thanks!