17th Sunday in OT---Hungers of the Heart---Glenmary Mission Appeal in Miami

Do you ever have a hunger inside that just cannot seem to be satisfied?  I mean where you feel like your stomach is going to eat itself.  Well we have a restaurant in the north that tries to satisfy this kind of hunger.  It’s called the Golden Corral.  Perhaps you have heard of this place.

Now, the very name of the restaurant should already tell us something—I only know of one thing that goes into a corral, and it sure isn’t humans!  It should be enough to say that this restaurant has available just about every kind of food known to us.  But even more, it is all you can eat.  In essence, you can go to a place like this and eat the meat of just about every four legged and two legged animal that exists (believe me, I’ve tried).  Now, after indulging in all that meat (and who really has time for vegetables and fruit) one can choose dessert.  There is your usual cookies and ice cream.  But if you are looking for something to put on top of that dessert, get this: they now have a fountain of chocolate. A fountain!  Not just chocolate sauce or sprinkles, but a fountain.  People practically stick their entire face in this fountain to get the chocolate.  And if that isn’t enough, they also serve cotton candy that a person can enjoy on the ride home.  This restaurant certainly makes a good effort to satisfy the deepest of hungers.

But I think we all have hungers inside that food can’t even satisfy.  Hungers that go to the very depths of our soul.  Hungers that push us to ask the big questions of life.   

We are a people who hunger for meaning:  after the massacre in Colorado last week we long even more for deeper meaning in our lives.  We want to understand why evil like this can exist.  We want to understand how our culture can produce so much violence.  We hunger for meaning. 

We are a people who hunger for intimacy:  I am not just referring to physical intimacy, which is important.  But in our culture it seems that our skewed sense of physical intimacy is leaving us feeling hungrier.  Hungrier for an authentic intimacy, a love that is lasting, real, complete.  A love that includes an intimacy of the entire person: heart, spirit, mind and body.  And so we hunger for intimacy.

We are a people who hunger for truth:  We have wandered and wondered long enough in this world of relativism and individualism.  This world of rugged individualism that leaves us wandering alone and lonely down a road with no direction.  This world of tolerance for everything except the truth.  We desire inside to be united with others, but realize that when each of us holds our own truth, then our disunity is proof that none of us held anything at all.  And so we hunger for truth.

The people in today’s gospel were hungry too.  Jesus knew their hungers.  And it was through a miracle that he satisfied the physical hunger of the people.  They ate and were satisfied.  But I would argue a greater miracle occurred in the Gospel.  Not just a miracle of food.  But a miracle of faith. 

In being physically fed, the people saw that Jesus could satisfy all of their hungers.  For once fed with bread and fish, the people saw clearly.  They saw that Jesus is truly the prophet, the one who is to come into the world.  The one who can satisfy all their hungers. 

They simply needed to have faith.

Today we are going to be physically fed with the gifts of bread and wine.  But the true miracle exists not in our physical nourishment, but in our spiritual nourishment.  In the miracle of faith.  For this bread and wine, when touched by divinity, becomes for us the body and blood of Jesus.  In his body and blood we find that we can truly be satisfied. 

We can satisfied: satisfied with meaning that touches the deepest desires of our heart.  Satisfied with meaning that replaces despair with hope, violence with peace, revenge with forgiveness. 

We can be satisfied: satisfied with an intimacy that reveals to us our true desires.  Satisfied with an intimacy that is forever faithful, forever enduring, forever giving.  Satisfied with an intimacy that drives us to deeper, more meaningful relationships in our life.  Satisfied with an intimacy that allows us to finally love ourselves, so that we can truly love others. 

We can be satisfied:  satisfied with a truth that transcends each of us.  A truth that endures.  A truth that contains the answer to all that we desire:  a loving God, who proved his love for us by dying on the cross, that all of our hungers might one day be satisfied in him.  We can be satisfied.

We only need to have faith.

I belong to a religious community called the Glenmary Home Missioners.  In the 1930s, our founder looked upon regions in the south and south east of the United States, along with Appalachia, and saw that these people were hungry. Their hungers were much like our own, but there was no one there to lead them to the God who could satisfy those hungers.  There were hundreds of counties throughout this area that had no Catholic presence:  people would have to drive hours just to receive the sacraments of the church.  Thus most would go without, and remain hungry.  These people were hungry, being in some of the most poor and neglected areas of the United States.  These people were hungry, receiving poor education, few opportunities to grow, and little to no health care.  These people were hungry, never receiving the chance to hear of this Jesus who gives himself to us in the Eucharist.  Therefore, he founded Glenmary, and for nearly 75 years the community has worked tirelessly to bring the gifts of the Catholic Church to these areas.  To relive the hungers of the people to whom we serve.

At the beginning of September I am going to begin my first assignment as associate pastor in Glenmary’s newest missions in Eastern Tennessee.  I am super excited for this opportunity.  Imagine, just a few short months ago, this mission was nothing but a few Catholics gathering at a parishioner’s house, and celebrating mass in this county for the first time ever.  Now, this mission has attracted hundreds of Catholics who gather for Mass every week in an abandoned store front.  And there is talk that soon an actual church will need to be built.  In just a few short months, hundreds of people have been given the chance to have their deepest hungers satisfied.  And hundreds more will likely follow after them.

So I close in humbly asking for your support of the Glenmary Home Missioners.  Please support us with your prayers.  Consider a vocation serving in the US missions as a priest or brother.  Finally, if you are able, consider supporting us financially.  Help us to satisfy the hungers of a people truly in need.

Peace.  Thanks.