🧀The Cheese & Crackers = Quotes by St. Herman of Alaska, St. Benedict of Nursia, and Pope Francis,
🍆The Veggies = My 2💰
🍟The Potatoes = "Becoming Fuel for Fire: St. Sebald and Eucharistic Transformation, by Rick Becker
🌭The Meat = "Article: "To Serve the Homeless, Carmelite Brother Chose to Become Homeless", by Denis Grasska
🍧The Dessert = YouTube video: "My Sacrifice and Yours: Hold Back Nothing of Yourselves!", by Fr. Joseph Aytona
And for this humble thought and readiness to serve God, the Lord will immediately illumine him... And then your soul will sense the Lord; she will sense that the Lord has forgiven her, and loves her, and you will know this from experience, and the grace of the Holy Spirit will be a witness in your soul of your salvation, and you will want to cry out to the whole world: "The Lord loves us so much!" By St. Silouan the Athonite
🍘"But in process of time and growth of faith, when the heart has once been enlarged, the way of God’s commandments is run with unspeakable sweetness of love." By St. Benedict of Nursia
💎“To nourish ourselves with him and abide in him through Holy Communion transforms our life into a gift to God and to our brothers.” By Pope Francis
👀When our eyes begin to open, and head knowledge becomes heart knowledge, we are removed from the natural and enter into the supernatural realm. We notice and see what a mighty God we serve.
📖23-24 "However, boats from Tibe'ri-as came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Caper'na-um, seeking Jesus “
👀 There is not one thing that happens apart from Jesus procuring it for us, it is always through Him, with Him, in Him, whether we know it or acknowledge His intervention. When we truly awaken to His presence we'll always be seeking Him, no and's if's or but's.
📖25 "When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
👀 This rings true to the scripture, if we seek, we shall find.
📖26-27 "Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but “because you ate your fill of the loaves". Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal."
👀 We may fool ourselves, but never can we fool the Lord. Human nature remains the same, time after time. Always in some form or fashion, we may be doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, or the right thing for the wrong reason. Only the Lord can be for us the truth that will set us free.
📖28-29 "Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
👀 If we mean business with the Lord, He will mean business with us. He will meet us where we are, and take us where we need to go.
📖30So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?
👀 Here we go, aren't we always looking for a sign? The signs are everywhere, all over, but we fail to see them because we do not really want to see. Sometimes it is because it's not the signs we want to see or expect to see. Lead by the Holy Spirit, our eyes will be opened, and see we certainly will.
📖31-32 "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven"
👀 Leaning on our own understanding, how off base w can be. Those abiding in Christ and filled with he Holy Spirit will have the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to move forward in the spiritual life.
📖33-35 "For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger “and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
👀 Thanks be to God, every need physical or physical comes from above to give us life. Truly the answer for the world today, yesterday and tomorrow is Jesus. Always, always He is our Good Shepherd and we shall not want. To come to Him is our answer, the solution for every problem. Coming fully surrendered more and more to the Lord, allows a transformation which results in our hunger and thirst being alleviated, as He continues to feed the hunger and quench the thirst in every way. So possible because He never said leaves or forsakes us, and is aware of every need, want, or desire. He fills the hungry with good things, blessed be the name of the Lord.
John 6.55-56 “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink,” says the Lord. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” |
But that Eucharistic transformation isn’t a static one. It’s not magic, and it’s certainly not an assembly line. If we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, and then do nothing to flesh out in our words and actions whom we’ve received, then the efficacy of the sacrament is muted to the point of silence. “To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us,” the Catechism insists, “we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren” (CCC 1397, emphasis added). And, if there were any question as to what that implies, the Catechism goes on to quote St. John Chrysostom: “You dishonor this table when you do not judge worthy of sharing your food someone judged worthy to take part in this meal.”
In other words, our worthy reception of Christ in the Eucharist requiresthat we then strive to become more Christlike, and to become more Christlike is to strive for ever greater charity toward the poor — and everybody. In the course of the Mass, the bread and wine on the altar really does become the Body and Blood of Christ, no question. But if that sacramental reality is to change us into Christ, then we have to intentionally and repeatedly subject our entire selves to it — what we do, what we desire, what we will. An apt metaphor for this metamorphic sacramental relationship is the connection between fuel and flame. “As fire transforms into itself everything it touches,” reads the Catechism, “so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power” (CCC 1127). When we receive Holy Communion, it’s as if we allow ourselves to be changed into combustible Christs, but only if we’re serious about being set aflame in a world in need of his light and warmth.
St. Angela of Foligno, writing in the late Middle Ages, made a similar point: “If we but paused for a moment to consider attentively what takes place in this Sacrament, I am sure that the thought of Christ’s love for us would transform the coldness of our hearts into a fire of love and gratitude.” Yet, we often hold back — at least I do. And it’s often due to the severity of that coldness St. Angela mentioned — the icy selfishness in my heart, the frozen motivation to become a saint. I receive Jesus in the Eucharist, yet I’m not all that convinced that I’m truly flammable material, and so the divine love that ought to be bursting forth smolders instead.
For help with this, it’s worth turning to St. Sebald of Nuremberg, an 8th-century hermit whose feast day ordinarily would’ve been celebrated yesterday (August 19). Although the hagiographic record is mixed, it seems that Sebald was a Danish prince who experienced a conversion, abandoned a royal romance, and embraced a life of penance and prayer. He went on pilgrimage to Rome, sought and received the Pope’s approbation for his new way of life, and then associated himself with the saintly brothers Willibald and Winibald, along with their sister, Walburga, in their efforts to evangelize the German people.
Eventually he took up a solitary life in the Bavarian wilderness (around present-day Nuremberg) where he developed a reputation for sanctity and wonderworking. After his death around the year 770, a local cult of devotion grew up, and the people built a shrine in honor of their hometown holy man. This was the beginnings of the great parish church of St. Sebald in Nuremberg, and the city in time adopted the humble hermit as its patron saint.
St. Sebald is also known as the patron saint of those suffering from cold weather, and the reason for this is curious — and relevant to today’s Eucharistic Gospel theme. According to legend, it appears that one cold, snowy night, Sebald took shelter with an impoverished peasant who couldn’t locate any firewood nor afford to buy any. The poor man’s hut was not much warmer than it was outside, and his family, along with his saintly guest, felt it keenly. “So Sebald turned to the housewife and asked her to bring in a bundle of the long icicles hanging from the eaves,” writes Rev. Alban Butler. “This she did, Sebald threw them on the fire, and they blazed up merrily.” A couple things to consider in this little vignette. First, the icicles didn’t miraculously turn into wood before the saint tossed them into the hearth. Instead, it seems that the icicles morphed into fuel at the very moment they were burned up. This is similar to the story of the ten lepers who approached Jesus for healing. Certainly he could have snapped his fingers and cured them on the spot, but what he actually did was send them, still leprous, to the priest, “and as they went they were cleansed”
I think this is how Eucharistic grace operates in our lives. We can’t sit back and wait for sanctification to happen after we receive Holy Communion. To the degree that we’re able, we’re called on to draw on that sanctifying grace by extending, stretching ourselves in our efforts to be Christ for others. It happens incrementally and over time, which is why the Church urges us to receive the Eucharist frequently. But every time we do, we should be mindful that God will want to set us aflame, and there’s no sense in resisting that.
One other thought: Since we’re talking about miracles here, it’s important to note that the icicles weren’t even really required. There’s biblical precedent for flame without fuel — like the fiery pillar that led the Israelites through the wilderness, for instance, and Moses’s encounter with God in a bush that was “was burning, yet it was not consumed”.
“Go, you are sent,” we’re told at the end of every Mass after we’ve consumed our Lord. It’s the crucial moment we’re expected to follow through on what we’ve received and be consumed ourselves."
Info from this site:
www.thesoutherncross.org/main_headline.asp
“From just looking at Brother Michael Ignatius, one wouldn’t suspect it. But the 61-year-old Carmelite is homeless. For several months, his bed was a bench on a bike path near San Diego International Airport. Later, he discovered that he could get a few hours of sleep every night by taking a round trip on the San Diego Trolley’s Green Line. And there were times when he was so hungry that he scrounged for food in dumpsters. Experience taught him that those in the Point Loma area were the best, because they often contained fresh seafood. Brother Michael, a postulant with the Carmelite Order, voluntarily embraced homelessness as part of a one-man ministry to those living on the streets. “Honestly, I really don’t know why I’m doing it, except for I get so much joy from doing it,” he said.
Last summer, he was working at a soup kitchen in Denver, when he felt called to serve the homeless in a more radical way. In conversation with his spiritual director, he realized what this would require. “I needed to become homeless,” he said. “I needed to go through what they go through.” Widowed nine years ago after almost 29 years of marriage, and with his four children already grown to adulthood, there was nothing to hold him back. He gave away essentially everything he owned. Last June, he boarded a bus to Los Angeles with his few remaining possessions, a handful of items that included a Bible, a breviary, a backpack, three changes of clothes, a sleeping bag and a blanket. After a trek north to Santa Monica, he embarked on a six-week journey by foot to San Diego, arriving there in early August.
Along the way, Brother Michael relied entirely on God’s providence — and his trust was constantly rewarded. He recalled occasions on which strangers or newfound acquaintances gave him money without his even asking; once, praying for food after going three days without it, he found a coconut lying in the beach sand and a bag of limes that had washed up on shore. “This is the way God has been this entire journey of mine,” he said. “Anytime there was a need, it was provided.”
Brother Michael said that his is “an evolving ministry.” At the outset, there was no fixed plan for all that it would entail. But, by being open to God and the opportunities that He has presented, the ministry took shape.
During the day, he encounters people of all sorts, including young adults discerning what to do with their lives, older people who envy his freedom, Christian street preachers to whom he shares his Catholic beliefs, and, of course, the homeless themselves. For him, engaging in ministry can be as simple as spotting a homeless person on the street and striking up a conversation. Sometimes, his interlocutor will ask if he can spare a few bucks. “I don’t have any money, but I do have a passage for you from Scripture,” he will tell them, pulling out his Bible, reading a few verses, encouraging them to reflect on the meaning of those divinely inspired words, and concluding by asking if he can pray for their salvation. Sometimes, at fast-food restaurants, he will pick up discarded receipts that include a “Buy one, get one free” coupon. By offering to share that second meal with a fellow homeless person, he has found yet another way to start conversations.
He has become so familiar with the homeless community that he can tell who is new to the area and who has been there for months. He recognizes their faces and, in many cases, knows their names and their stories. Through his personal appearance, Brother Michael hopes to come across as the sort of person to whom others would feel comfortable talking. A cross and a scapular are the only telltale signs that he is a religious brother. But, while he tries to blend in with his homeless brothers and sisters, he draws the line at growing unruly facial hair, looking dirty or wearing unclean clothes. He has made an effort to find those public places where he is able to shower regularly.
“I try never to look soiled, or beaten, or worn,” he said.
Brother Michael believes that many of the local homeless are unaware of the wide array of services available to them or how to receive them.
He recounted how he had been walking down C Street one day and saw two homeless men sitting on the sidewalk with a sign that said they were hungry and needed help. They were unfamiliar with the many local soup kitchens and didn’t know that, only a few blocks away, they could sign up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which would enable them to purchase groceries. After Brother Michael helped them sign up, the man named Jerry was so grateful that he hugged and kissed him.
While conversing with the homeless, Brother Michael also tries to connect them with organizations that will nourish their souls as well as their bodies. He will often invite them to join him for Sunday worship at one of the many churches he has come to know. Because not all of the homeless are Catholic, he has established relationships with Christian pastors and churches of various denominations. As part of his own spiritual routine, he prays the Divine Office and tries to attend Mass daily. He spends an average of three hours a day in prayer. This coming October, he hopes to take vows as a novice. Brother Michael is a frequent visitor to local soup kitchens and other ministries to the homeless. Since late January, this has included the mental health clubhouses funded by the County of San Diego, places where those struggling with mental illness, including the homeless, can find support and vocational training. At such venues, he offers Bible study, spiritual direction and friendship.
He recalled meeting Patrick, an autistic man who considered himself a fallen-away Catholic, at one of the clubhouses. He made arrangements to bring Patrick to St. Joseph Cathedral for confession one Friday. “This guy was so happy, you wouldn’t believe,” said Brother Michael, who also gave Patrick a Bible. “He took a shower, he got his Sunday best on to go to confession, to ask this priest, ‘Can I come back to the Church?’”
In late April, Brother Michael joined the staff of the homeless ministry God’s Extended Hand, which has provided him with a room for the night. His duties as head cook for breakfast are typically fulfilled by 1 p.m., freeing him to hit the streets and conduct his ministry. Having had a good night’s sleep in a bed, rather than on a bench or a trolley car, also means that he is able to approach that ministry with more energy.
Brother Michael, whose father would invite homeless men into their home to join them at the dinner table, has always had a heart for the downtrodden. He stresses the importance of truly immersing oneself in the lives of those on the streets.To those who might feel that they have fulfilled their obligation by donating to the weekly collection at their church, he says, “No, you didn’t do your part until you sat down and you talked to Fred, or you talked to Billy, and you talked to Jim, and you talked to Sally.” Acknowledging that the issue of homelessness is complicated, he said the solution involves “being connected to the actual people you are trying to help.” “[If] you’re going to go serve them dinner at God’s Extended Hand, don’t just hand them the tray,” he said. “Hand them the tray, and sit down next to them, and talk to them. That’s the difference.” The Southern Cross
https://youtu.be/VQ26S--BSK0