The
actor and comedian Jim Carey said this: ‘I wish everyone could get
rich and famous and have everything they ever dreamed of, so they
would know that’s not the answer.’ It
is always good when we see our economy doing better. I know it
doesn’t affect every one of us directly, but it is encouraging and
at least it means there are more jobs around. Yet how is it that
despite better times economically, we don’t seem to be much
happier? There is often more pressure on people to ‘succeed’ and
we have less and less time for the ordinary things. Everyone seems to
be mad busy trying to get money. Suicide is on the increase and so is
the rate of crime. So what is wrong? We thought we finally had it all
together.
I
believe one of the reasons is that we forget that we are body and
spirit, and that we have to look after both sides of ourselves. We
are experts at looking after the body, but most people are extremely
ignorant when it comes to looking after the spirit, or soul. No
amount of money, or work, or the right house, or car, will bring us
happiness, because there is an emptiness inside us that material
things cannot and will not ever fulfill. This is the spiritual
side of ourselves, which can only be fulfilled by what is spiritual.
Sometimes it takes a death, or serious illness, to make us wake up to
this fact.
Sometimes
we forget that our life comes from God, and that He is the only one
who can keep us alive. We say, ‘God didn’t give me my life, my
parents did.’ Our parents gave us our bodies, but not our soul.
That comes from God and that’s what will live on when we die. God
gives us our life and God is the source of our life. So to fulfill
the spiritual side of ourselves we turn to him, because He is the
only one who can fulfill us and make any sense of why we are alive in
the first place.
When
Jesus taught the people about the Eucharist, he said, ‘If you do
not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not
have life in you.’ ‘Whoever eats me, will draw life from me.’
There it is from the mouth of Christ. This is where we will find
fulfillment, in Jesus and we receive Jesus in the Eucharist every
time we receive Holy Communion. God makes it so easily available to
us, so that everyone can receive it if they want to. We won’t find
fulfillment anywhere else. God is the only one who can fulfill us and
this is why Jesus is constantly inviting us to spend time with him
and to receive him often. But you object: ‘I don’t have time!’
Let me tell you a short story.
Mother
Teresa, who founded ‘the
Missionaries of Charity’, recalls the following experience. Shortly
after she had begun her work among the poor and there were only a
handful of them working together, they found themselves being
overwhelmed because there was a huge amount of work to be done. They
were struggling to cope, because the needs were so great. They prayed
to God and asked him to show them what they should do. And they felt
that the Lord was telling them to spend an extra hour a day in
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This didn’t make any sense to
them since they felt that they already didn’t have enough time to
work, so how could they give an extra hour to prayer? And yet they
really felt that this was what God was asking them to do so they
decided they would try to be obedient to it. So they began to give an
extra hour a day to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and an hour
less to work. What happened? After a short time many more people
began to join the order soon they had many extra people to help them
with the work.
If
you give time to God He will make it up to you, because God will
never be outdone in generosity. God is inviting us to discover him
again, to make time for him again. You won’t find the time, you
have to make the time and I guarantee you that for every
minute you give to God, He will make it up to you.
It
is important to remember that while Jesus is humble enough to give
himself to us in Holy Communion, we should be careful about how we
approach him. He has come for sinners; that is true. And we are
sinners; that is also true. But if we receive the Eucharist often we
should also confess our sins often. God has given us the gift of Holy
Communion, but He has also given us the gift of confession, so that
we can be free of sin and so that we can approach him as we should,
with humility. That is why we begin every mass by acknowledging our
sins. This is one place where we cannot demand rights. Before God we
have no rights. Everything from him is a gift. So we should confess
to a priest, especially if there is something serious that we have
done and don’t say that you have no sins. In the first letter of
St. John he says: ‘If anyone says they have not sinned they are
calling God a liar’ (1 John 1:10). This is God’s word. Would you
dare to say the Word of God is wrong? It is a great gift to be able
to confess our sins and be free of them. Don’t be afraid to because
it is for our benefit. God works through the priest and it doesn’t
matter how holy or sinful the priest is. It is God’s forgiveness
you receive, his gift to you, so that you can be free. The priest is
just the instrument. In the same way, it doesn’t matter how holy or
sinful the priest is when it comes to the Eucharist. God will be
present just the same, because God would never allow his presence to
depend on a priest being holy enough. Hopefully the priest does live
the kind of life that God asks of us, but either way, Jesus is
present just as much in the Eucharist.
If
we have emptiness within us, it is because our spirits are starving
and there is only one who can satisfy that hunger. ‘I am the bread
of life. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I
in them.’
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