The Eucharist: The Necessary Antidote For Spiritual Exhaustion

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of Ascension, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Is there anyone here who does not know what it means to hit the wall? I think everyone including children knows what that means. When I was the pastor of St. Gerard Majella Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I used to frequent the Independence Park to play soccer. The Park has multiple soccer fields for people of different ages. I played with young men in their thirties and early forties because I was in my thirties at the time. Since we were all within the same age bracket, we would play for about two hours or more as our strength can carry us. Playing soccer was fun for me and also my own way of exercising and staying healthy. But one evening, I joined a group of younger men in their early twenties because my group did not show up for that day. After about an hour and a few minutes of playing with this group of younger men, I realized I could not just go on. Because they were much younger, they ran faster, and moved the ball much faster than my group. As such, they made me run so much and gasped for breath the whole time I was playing with them. I wasn't necessarily tired and worn out, I was simply unable to keep moving and keep going on. It was purely the case of hitting the wall. What did I do? I stepped out of the field, looked for bag, opened it and brought out my cold water bottle and drank. After sitting out for about fifteen minutes, I was able to return to the field. 

Today’s first reading (1 Kings 19:4-8) reminds me of my soccer experience with younger men in their early twenties. Elijah the prophet has hit the wall. What precedes today’s reading is the famous story of the battle between Elijah and the priests of Baal. You can find the story in 1 Kings 18. Elijah challenges the priests of Baal to call upon their gods to see if they would answer. After calling on their gods for half a day with no response from them, Elijah called upon Yahweh and Yahweh sent down fire to consume Elijah’s sacrifice. After that, Elijah put to death the 450 pagan priests of Baal. And after that, Queen Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab who was herself a worshipper of Baal was infuriated with Elijah. She sent the army after Elijah. So for days, Elijah is on the run. He is in the desert away from the cities to avoid being captured by an army of trained killers. While in the desert alone, exhausted, and terrified, he lamented, “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” Now, can you recall when you felt that way when spiritually and psychologically speaking, you were unable to go on, when you had just hit the wall? By this I don’t mean when you feel depressed or sad or simply having a bad day. I mean when you were unable to go on and prayed for death. 

Now, the beautiful side of the story is that an angel appeared to Elijah— help from heaven, touched him and ordered him to get up and eat and drink. Elijah does so, and lays down again. For the second time, the angel of the Lord persists and says, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” The prophet gets up, eats and drinks some more. And only then he is able to make it to Horeb, the mountain of God. In this event, you can see the symbolic communion between divinity and humanity. We all want communion with God. We are on a journey to complete communion with God, but at times we hit the wall. As a result we are not able to go on unless we eat and drink food from heaven. 

Sisters and brothers, what we are dealing with here is a metaphor for spiritual exhaustion and spiritual eating. But what can cause spiritual exhaustion? What can cause the spiritual hitting of the wall? The first cause is religious indifference. People who have been influenced by secularism make caricature of religion and religious people. They speak and live as if God does not matter. Sometimes when I celebrate funeral Mass, where some of the secularistic minded people attend for the sake of their departed loved ones, I do see their body language and facial countenance communicate that they don’t care what God says. Such lack of interest in God leads to the hitting of the wall. If become alienated from God the Source of life, we just can’t move because we are cutting ourselves off from the Source of life. Another cause of spiritual exhaustion and the hitting of the wall is habitual sin. For those who are stuck in a pattern of life of pride, envy and resentment, these sins, with time can build up and cut them off from the Source of life. The same goes for those who are caught in addiction of pornography or adultery, or any other habitual sin. The Church says that habitual sin can wear out the divine life in us. It can kill the contact with God we need to live. Being angry with God can also lead to the hitting of the wall spiritually. I have encountered people who for different reasons are angry with God. Something happened to them, may be some suffering, some terrible loss, may be their own failure in life, they are angry with God. The anger towards God leads to a fracture from the Source of life and leads to the hitting of the walls spiritually. There are a lot of people who are spiritually exhausted and don’t even know it. In terms of business, work, relationship etc. they are going on with their lives but aren’t going on spiritually. In the world, they are doing well but not heading towards the mountain of God like Elijah. Yet they wonder why they are so lost and so unhappy. They wonder why even though they are so successful in other things they do, but their lives are not going anywhere. They seem stuck. That’s what it feels like to hit the wall and to be as exhausted spiritually as Elijah was. If that’s your problem,  what’s the answer? 

As the reading suggests, it is indeed a matter of eating and drinking. Read the first reading symbolically because it is not ordinary food and water that we need to go on spiritually. It is a matter of eating and drinking Him— Christ Jesus the Lord! The Elijah passage is meant to prepare us for the stunning Gospel today taken from John 6:41-51. Jesus is speaking of himself as the Bread of life, which means the necessary source of sustenance. Here he is not talking about candy or ice cream or cookies. He is talking about something that is so basic and elemental that we need to survive. The food that he is is deeply and profoundly relevant and essential to our spiritual success. It is not a matter of “it’s nice if we can get it,” rather it is required for life. In today Gospel Jesus says, “…whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Physical food allows us to live for a time and indeed for a very short time. That’s why we eat three times a day, and I know some people eat more than three times a day. Yes, physical food sustains life but in a very restrictive way. However, the Bread that Jesus gives which is identical to his very life and substance gives life in the fullest sense. Why? Because it links us to the Source of life. Jesus speaks of eternal life, the life you need to God. Here is the bottomline, if we want that life, the eternal life, we have to eat this Bread. And the truth is that deep down, everyone of us wants that life, we want communion with God, we want to live forever and have eternal life. 

Now going back to the scene of hitting the wall, if you want to go on, if you want to make it all the way to the mountain of God, you have to eat something— the Eucharistic Bread. It is not an option here. You have to eat the Bread and drink the cup that Jesus proposed is himself. You can say all you want, you can complain that we have to eat bread and meat in order to sustain our biological life. But there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s just how the body is structured. You might even say in a similar way,  “it is unfair and bizarre that Eucharistic Bread is required for eternal life. But again, it is just the way the spiritual life is structured. Jesus is like a field of force; he is like a river; he is like energy source. It is not just his teaching or his example that matters. He matters! It is so tragic that so many Catholics blithely stay away from the Eucharist as if he doesn’t particularly matter. People who stay away from the Eucharistic bread do not understand what it means and do not understand the spiritual dilemma they are in. The Eucharist is the necessary antidote for spiritual exhaustion. We all need the Body of Christ to nourish our souls and keep us in communion with God.