18th Week in Ordinary Time (B) : Sunday 4th August 2024

Ever wonder why Jesus uses the images of hunger and thirst when speaking of human salvation? It is because salvation of the soul is related to survival of the human body. Just as the body needs material food and water to survive, so too the soul needs spiritual food and drink which Christ Jesus provides.

This basic image of hunger and thirst reminds us how God saved the Israelites from bodily and spiritual starvation during their long Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land; from slavery to freedom, sin to salvation. Under the shepherding of the proto-Christo figure of Moses, God fed the people manna, the food from the sky, and water from the rock – unlikely earthly sources of nourishment that only God provides. But this bread and water were only pre-figurations, for those who ate and drank them still died later. It would only be in and through Jesus, the Christ, when the divine source of food wer no longer earthly elements but the Divine itself as Jesus’ body and blood became our spiritual food and drink that, in partaking of them, one would have eternal life with God.

What then is our response to this immense gift of God? We take heed of St. Paul’s counsel to the Ephesians, that our minds be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that [we] can put on the new self that has been created in God’s Way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.

Lord, thank You for providing bread and word to nourish our spiritual hunger.