There are feasts that require us to go hungry. The hunger comes when we realize that it’s through the feast that we can become satisfied.
Hungry in Times of Feasting
It’s going on several weeks now since I received the Eucharist. I’ve heard priests say that participating in Lent and Holy Week will fill one up for an entire year–I feel like I am using any blessings I ‘gained’ throughout that time all up now.
I know Christ is working in me, and I know He is with me through my hard times and times of temptation. But I miss Him; I miss Him desperately.
We are not meant to go so long without uniting with our Creator, with the One Who loves us and sustains our every moment; Who is the Life in our blood, in our breath, in every thought …
A quote from a saint whose name I forgot was on X today:
If you cannot make it to Liturgy, how can you say you desire Heaven?
Busted.
The eating remains. A friend of mine told me he finds it hard to eat in joy and celebration; to eat in a normal, healthy way–and he doesn’t mean getting enough protein or greens in his diet. No. It’s eating with thanksgiving and love, and not just on autopilot or filling oneself up just because.
“Are you hungry?”
“Ya, I could eat …”
Not like that.
I find that hard too. I need the weekly fasts, and those times before Liturgy, to routinely reorientate, re-align, re-order my relationship with God through food.
Lent is long, but with Bright 50 it’s really long. Maybe year after year you learn and come to each Lent and Paschal season with memory of the last one: I’ll do it this way next year and not that way …
The Psalm reading for today:
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.
Psalm 42:5
This worldly life is down; the heavenly life, the life of the Holy Eucharist is up. Yet when we approach Him and receive Him we bow down, we lower ourselves so that He may lift us up and hold us and kiss our heads and love us.
But because the worldly life is down (base, dark), we have to try to lift ourselves up, to embrace ourselves (self care), to elevate ourselves, and we bow to no one. This is the life of pain, and the life of filling ourselves to deal with the emptiness of being human, of not being able to lift ourselves up. Only God can do that.
The Gospel
Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live” (Mark 5:21).
Jairus knew what to do when he had a major issue in his life–his daughter dying: he sought out Jesus and fell at His feet. What else is there to do? Can he, Jairus, heal her? No.
And what about the woman with bleeding for twelve years in that same chapter? She had spent all her money on physicians and was no better. All she did was reach out and touch his garment, and, it says,
immediately the fountain of blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?” … But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction”(Mark 5).
We have to go down to go up.
The way down is the Way up.
Not through us; not through the power of our ‘rationality’–whatever that means–or by optimism or positive thinking.
We go up by lowering ourselves, bowing ourselves, to Christ the Logos, the Way. And He fills us, for He is the Bread of Life, He is the Living Water, His is the Blood that purifies.
For,
The right hand of the LORD is exalted;
The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.
I shall not die, but live,
And declare the works of the LORD.
Psalm 118:16-17.
And St John says in 1 John 3:21-24
Beloved if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
And when we keep this commandment, to be faithful to God by loving one another as He told us to do, then He abides in us and we abide in Him. And we know this by the Holy Spirit who is working in us.
But then we must remember, and be fully aware of our state before Him, that we live in a fallen world, that we can become corrupted and sick and need Him for everything, as our teacher David the prophet and king writes,
But I am poor and needy;
Make hast to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Psalm 70:5
And as St John the Baptist says, in an orientation to God that is normal, that is healthy,
A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. [And] the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.
Jn 3:25-30
We’ve stood and waited for the Bridegroom for many days …
Then, we stood and waited for the Feast of the Resurrection, for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and rejoiced and celebrated …
And now we bask in His presence.
We hear His voice.
But sometimes we stray too far from the banquet table that His voice is not as audible or it is drowned out by the sounds of the world–the hustle, the constant music, the screens that go ‘ding’ every 5 minutes–that we can’t hear Him very well, if at all.
We must go back.
We must go back to the feast.
And that hunger before the feast, that hunger for Him and Him alone, is what drives us there.
To bow before Him, the Bridegroom, and receive His Life, His Joy, His Love so we may spread His Light, His Love, His Joy to those around us, and thus walk in Heaven here on earth.
For the earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness.
