Bread Alone

I have been fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays since the scandals broke. We know we are dealing with demons in the Church, and that in scripture sometimes prayer needs to be accompanied by fasting, as the Lord says, "this kind can only be driven out except by prayer and fasting" (Mk 9:29) And so it is good for discipline but also necessary for reparation.

By God's grace, though, I don't notice the hunger as much as I may have fixated on it in the past. Something is happening, there is something in the air, and all around me people are rising up to what God is calling them to, even as many fall away and no longer follow, or remain tepid and static.

I get very sad sometimes. We stopped by a carnival type festival the other day in our town. There were rides and things for the kids, food vendors, people selling things. Normally it would just be a nice afternoon, but I was in a somber kind of mood and don't generally like crowds to begin with, so I was put off a little. As my wife mentioned one time when we were at the kitchen table one night talking about the end of days, "it's like everyone is walking around, like that show "The Walking Dead." You try to explain, you try to say 'wake up!' but they won't be roused from the immediacy of the here-and-now. There is nothing wrong with enjoying things like food and entertainment. But at Mass this morning in the epistle, the words of the Apostle took root, and it made sense:

"I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away." (1 Cor 7:25-31)

In Adoration the other day, I had a strong experience of wanting nothing but the Lord, like air, like I would suffocate without him even for a second. I knelt on the floor and closed my eyes and for a while was just taken over by my helplessness, my need for Him, to cleave to Him during these times. Later, it came to me as I was in bed the scripture in John 4. Jesus has met a Samaritan woman at the well, asks her for a drink, and when she scoffs that he has nothing to draw the water, he replies:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:13-14)

She wants that water. She does not want to thirst again.

Not long after this episode, his disciples find him and urge him to eat something. But he replies,

“I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (Jn 4:32) 

So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them,

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." (Jn 4:32-34)

In fasting, we are training our bodies, as Paul says, "I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1 Cor 9:26-27) It's not that food is not important, but when bread is all we live for, we are blinded to life behind the curtain, the spiritual reality of life beyond the world. Fasting brings us in line with that reality. Dostoyevsky knew the power of bread, but more so the power of Christ to give meaning beyond bread:

“Christ knew that by bread alone you cannot reanimate man. If there were no spiritual life, no ideal of Beauty, man would pine away, die, go mad, kill himself or give himself to pagan fantasies. And as Christ, the ideal of Beauty in Himself and his Word, he decided it was better to implant the ideal of Beauty in the soul. If it exists in the soul, each would be the brother of everyone else and then, of course, working for each other, all would also be rich. Whereas if you give them bread, they might become enemies to each other out of boredom.”

I do not want to live for bread alone. I do not want to thirst again. The good news is in being baptized in Christ and into his death, we are brought into his life, since "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Mt 4:4) The Eucharistic bread, His true blood, sustain us, just as the waters of baptism wash us clean and dispose us to receive them and subsist on them.

St Catherine of Siena lived on the Eucharist alone for the last few years of her life. St Catherine of Genoa lived through the fasting times of Lent and Advent on only the Eucharist. St Joseph Cupertino lived for 5 years without food apart from the Eucharist. Blessed Alexandrina da Costa spent 13 years without food or drink but for the Eucharist.

This is truly miraculous of course, but we should not be surprised, those who are in Christ and see with eyes of faith, that life is more than bread! When we skip a meal we would think our lives would end from the way we act. But we are not trained, we are carnal, and so we suffer by way of softness. But the coming days will be days of hunger, both materially and spiritually, and we would do well to prepare, to train our bodies as Paul exhorts, but also to rely on the One who sustains us: God alone.

I still get sad when I am in crowds sometimes. I don't mean to be a curmudgeon when it comes to fun distractions. I feel very alone, but take comfort in Christ and that he often got away from crowds to be alone; that he enjoyed a wedding feast, ate and drank with his friends, but also spent 40 days of fasting as well to be undergo testing in preparation for what He was being called to. That he extols the virtue of going into your room and closing the door to be alone in intimacy with the Father. That he would rise early and go to a lonely place to pray. And it reminds me again that there is more to life than bread, than bread alone.