Posted by The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr Magdaleno Fabiosa SVD – Villa Cristo Rey, Christ the King Seminary, Quezon City
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B
In one of the issues of Fortune magazine some years ago, an interesting article appeared entitled “God and Business: The Surprising Quest for Spiritual Renewal in American Workplace.” The author is a patent lawyer with a big corporate law firm in Dallas.
At the age of 40 he had everything that the American dream could offer. But he was not happy. He was tormented by moral flabbiness born out of the exclusive worship of the goddess success. He knew something was missing in his life. He could feel and see emptiness inside him that shouted out to be filled. Then he came in contact with a group that espoused Hindu spirituality that had roots in India. This contact made the difference in his life.
Since that initial contact, he has traveled to India for a month every year since 1980 to make a retreat involving Buddhist meditation. He has learned with the help of his mentors there, that such retreats bring people into contact with the roots of one’s being, no other than the creator God. Such retreat filled him with love and compassion. It is like scrubbing the paint off the outside of a light bulb and letting the light shine through.
This true experience is a concrete and contemporary expression of the message of today’s gospel: we do not live by bread alone but also from every word that comes from the mouth of God. Bread in today’s Gospel represents everything material that we need in order to live as human beings. However, because we are not wholly material, there is a dimension in us that transcends the material, meaning there is a dimension in us that needs to be catered to and nourished by things that are commensurate to it – the spiritual.
Thus, when, a human being concentrates his/her attention and concern in life only on the material, it does not take long for that individual to feel and experience an emptiness that shouts from within to be filled up. Nothing material can ever silence it. This can be a very disturbing experience.
We need bread that comes from the mouth of God – the Word of God, Jesus himself the human expression of the creator God. He is the root of our being. We must get in touch with him; we must relate with him, we must allow him to enter that dimension of our life where he brings fulfillment to our whole being.
This is what the Gospel means when it says: we will not thirst any longer, because we experience a sense of satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment – something that we all are looking for.
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