John 6: 44-51  Teaching and Chewing

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Jesus said to the crowds:  “It is written in the prophets:  ‘They shall all be taught by God’…I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Since we have only one life to live and only one chance to live it, I want to make the most out of it, and I have come to realize that the only place I can find the love, the wisdom and the food I seek is if I lose my life in His life, and the only Church that provides all that the Lord gives is the Catholic Church.

There are three things that feed the hungry man:  God (love), wisdom (truth) and food (Eucharist).  I believe the Catholic Church supplies them all (and always) and in every single possible, imaginable and real way.  Of course, our critics can say or do whatever they want.  But ever since they have attempted to replace or destroy the Church with a myriad of their own institutions, the end result has been simply amazing:  the Church stands taller, more obvious and more stunning than ever before.  The line in the sand that Christ drew long ago only keeps getting longer, deeper and more defined.

For example, the Church and her institutions do not fear teaching morals and truth; that is, something meatier, solider and more meaningful than the shifting and constricting principles of ‘civic duty’ and ‘citizenship’.  Is this the most I can get out of my life; to be patriotic, to pay my taxes on time and be law abiding; to love my country right or wrong?  Without the Church what else would there be?  I hate that word:  ‘citizen’.  I hate what it means.  Actually, what does it mean?  Does it mean I fall in line, now…today?  Isn’t there more to life than just being a good citizen; like….being a Good Samaritan?  ‘Citizen’, like ‘Comrade’, makes me feel like a character out of some George Orwell novel.  I don’t want citizenship; I want son-ship.  I want to own my heritage as much as I want to know my duty.  So, I need to know right from wrong, something now and always; not now and fleeting.  Where can I go to find morals and truth?  Where can I go to find my true identity so that I can live my life and help those live it with me?  I want an identity that goes beyond and is not limited to my ‘nationality’ or ‘era’?  Where can I find words and duty that are both eternal and real; that continue to be both obvious and challenging?  The Government wants to make life easy for me, but always at a price.  Schools want me to think freely, but always at the expense of truth.  The family wants me to be successful, but always with the mighty dollar in mind. 

I don’t want to waste my time reinventing the wheel.  I don’t want to live my life like a Ferris Wheel.  Who can break the cycle and turn it straight again?  Who can break the cycle of ignorance, of shame, of guilt and of misery?  Who can break the chains of pride and the poverty of love?  I don’t want to relive what made the dinosaurs extinct or can make us go wild again.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to know all things, but I don’t want to experience them for myself.  I don’t want to draw my own line and I don’t want to start all over again every single time we have a new generation, a new war, or a new ‘cause’.  It appears as though civil disobedience works, but only when there is a clear and solid morality behind it.  I want to build off of that.  I don’t want to draw a new line in the sand.  I want the line that has already been drawn by the Artist since the dawn of man that respects man and woman for who they are and not what others want them to be.  I want to start off where we last met.  I want to continue the line that Christ drew.  I don’t want to be reborn, redefined and redrawn from below and over and over again. How many “new beginnings” have there been?  Have we not learned that every time we “rebuild” it’s because we have re-destroyed?  The French thought they had something going with their revolution.  They said, “Now year one begins.” The Germans thought they had it with their thousand year Reich, but that lasted only a few years.  I don't want myself or others to define me.  I want to be born, defined and drawn by the One who created me. 

Must we start over again?  Always?  The hippies thought they had found the fountain of happiness with decadence.  Must we start all over again? The past wars were to end all wars.  Again, must we start all over again? 

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the truth and the life.”  His words live on forever.  His life is meaningful forever.  His love is contagious forever.  His food brings life forever. 

Here’s something for all of us to think about and chew on at the same time.