Thirsting for God's Love

08-02-2020Weekly ReflectionFr. Arul Doss

Dear People of our three Parishes.

I express my hearty thanks for your good response to our Reunite, Rebuild and Rejoice appeal.

In the readings of Eighteenth Sunday, we meet both physical and spiritual hunger. For sure we must eat physical food to go on living. Of course, We need to eat and cannot live just on spiritual longings. On the other hand, many people get so caught up in their physical desires and needs that they effectively block spiritual hunger for long periods of time in their lives. Some people would even claim never to have had spiritual hunger.

For those of us who are aware of our spiritual hunger, there is a challenge to find the food that will help us live spiritually. Even if we have had many years in the Church, we can still ignore our spiritual hunger and get caught up in other realities. The prophet Isaiah today, in our first reading, is speaking to people who have known the revelation of God, whose ancestors encountered the living God. Yet all of these people have gone astray in spite of these experiences. Some of us have had spiritual experiences and then forgotten them or have not pursued the reality present in those experiences.

In the second reading of today, Saint Paul, assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We can personally choose against that love yet Christ continues to love us. It is a very beautiful reading. Many of us spend great parts of our lives choosing against that love, and finally we might recognize a spiritual hunger in ourselves and begin to choose for love at least a bit less inconsistently.

Jesus wants to cure us and heal us. Jesus wants to feed us. Even in His days on earth, when He was tired and worn out and discouraged, Jesus still consistently chose to love us. This teaches us how to love as well and how to feed others.

So, the readings of today challenge us to see our own hunger, to begin to work with the hunger that is within us, to seek the Lord. Then we must open our eyes and our hearts and see the hunger all around us. Then we can begin to walk in the steps of our Lord Jesus and feed others.

May God Bless you!

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