Why is Jesus always-hungering? Jesus hungers for souls! After his profound encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, his disciples urged him to eat. He responded, "I have food to eat of which you do not know....My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to finish his work." (John 4: 32; 34.) To finish God's work was to bring more souls into recognition of Jesus, the Face of the Living God of Merciful Love. Jesus knows that only God can fill us with the banquet of Life; only God can satisfy our ongoing, tormenting spiritual hunger and thirst.
Is it any wonder, then, that this hungering Jesus who seeks to fill us says "I am the Living Bread come down from heaven" and also "Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink"? Only in eating the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, can our souls be relieved of famine. Only in drinking the cup, the blood of Christ of the new and eternal covenant, can our souls' thirst be slaked. Blessed are we who recognize our own spiritual hunger and thirst and know and believe the One Whose gift of the Banquet of the Eucharist can satisfy us.
When you are weak and need strength, or lonely, or ridden with anxiety or destroyed by doubt, come to the Lord in the Eucharist. He is your saving Remedy. When you are bowed down with grief, come to Jesus in the Eucharist, who will comfort you.
The compassionate Jesus holds all in His Eucharistic heart. He hungers for justice and mercy among his people and for his people. He says "Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for justice" and he says we will be judged on how well we give food and drink to those who hunger and thirst. Jesus loves the whole of us, body and soul! And he knows very well that people will believe the Good News only if they see that Christians are serious about loving them and meeting their spiritual and physical needs. This is why he gave us the Beatitudes. He himself showed compassion by multiplying loaves and fish when the crowd that followed him grew hungry. Would he come to us as simple food and drink if he did not value the vital importance of providing sustenance for the hungry, thirsty, ignorant, homeless, and lonely among us?
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson describes Jesus as the one who speaks the truth about the needs of the poor, the marginalized, the outcast:
"Biblical faith recognizes that an understanding of truth is influenced by the perspective of the one who seeks it. That's why Scripture's consistent portrayal of the 'truth' about any social order is seen through the eyes of the poor and the marginalized. The Bible has that bias, and it was embraced by Jesus. He interpreted the truth about his society by focusing on the Samaritan, the widow, the oppressed servant, the outcast person with leprosy, the paralytic - all those whom the respectable, self-righteous leaders of society pushed to the margins and excluded.
"This way of seeing the truth of society from the perspective of the powerless and oppressed stands in contradiction to the version of 'truth' seen from the perspective of rulers." (from "An Anchor in the Storm," Sojourners magazine, April 2017)
If we use Jesus' priorities and concept of truth to critique the latest national budget which our governing elite is offering the country, we will see how its willful ignoring of the needs of the poor, hungry, and thirsty is manifestly immoral, and a false representation of the needs of Americans. "In the Trump era, we must take our stand against falsehood as an act of spiritual obedience, and follow Jesus in perceiving the truth about our society." (Granberg-Michaelson)
If we truly follow Jesus in faith, we will discover that faith is not merely about embracing doctrines and beliefs. Carefully pray over Paul's words: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:5) "The words call us up short as to what we are actually supposed to be doing on this path: not just admiring Jesus, but acquiring his consciousness." (Cynthia Bourgeault) Do we have the courage to choose to see through his eyes? Feel through his heart? Respond to the world with the same wholeness and healing love?
If the Eucharist strengthens us to put on the consciousness of Jesus, we too will hunger for souls and hunger to care for the poorest and most marginalized among us. And if we look with the eyes of faith, we can see how Jesus still hungers for souls and finds them to care for the least among us. There is, for example, a totally unexpected resurgence of religious faith in France. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, a contributing writer to America magazine (A Jesuit magazine) lives in Paris and is seeing this faith resurgence first hand. He writes, especially, about a young Frenchman named Jean-Marc Potdevin, founder of Entourage, who had an experience much like St. Paul's on the road to Damascus:
"Protest movements and intellectual reviews are well and good, but if a tree must be judged by its fruits, then the true criterion of whether the New Catholicism is for real will be the Beatitudes. One reason to be optimistic is the story of a nonprofit named Entourage, which partners with as many groups as possible to help the homeless.
"Entourage (a secular group) is an iPhone app that bills itself as a 'social network for those who don't have a social network.' It helps volunteers for organizations that help the homeless coordinate and share information. But it is also a public-facing app that helps anyone help the homeless around them. Someone can post about a person on the corner of such-and-such streets who needs a blanket, and someone else can bring it to them.
"Jean-Marc Potdevin, the founder of Entourage, is as earnest as anyone you will meet. An engineer by training, he became wealthy by working in several internet start-ups before undergoing what he calls a mid-life crisis: Why was he working so hard when he didn't need to, and what for? Although raised Catholic, he had stopped believing, praying, or attending church. One day, Potdevin decided to walk the road to Compostela (one of the most active pilgrimage destinations in the world) and he says that during his trip he had an encounter with Christ. In his earlier career as a scientist, 'I worked in a cognitive science research lab, so I know the mind can play tricks on you,' he quickly adds after describing how he believes the Lord spoke to him. After two years of working out his mystical experience under spiritual guidance, he got the idea for Entourage after spending more time with homeless people. Some who work at Entourage used to live in the streets, and the nonprofit has an advisory group made up of homeless people. More and more homeless people can now find smartphones, get online through free Wi Fi hotspots and are now on Entourage making requests.
"In a first world country, he explains, homeless people can find ways to feed themselves or get emergency health care or shelter: 'I'm not saying things are good, they're not, but that's not what kills homeless people. What kills homeless people is loneliness.' Behind the practical good that Entourage can do, he unfurls a vision that goes beyond hot meals to enabling social connections. 'Look at this society, where it's a permanent rat race, where we're all divided,' he says. 'What are we missing? We're missing the face of Christ, which is in the poor." ("Seeking Signs of a Catholic Revival in France," America magazine, April 17, 2017)
The continuing paradox is that the more our spiritual hunger and thirst are satisfied by the Eucharist, the more we too will hunger and thirst! United with Jesus, we will hunger and thirst for souls, hunger and thirst for justice and mercy, hunger and thirst to do the Will of the Father Who sends us as truly as He sent His Son Jesus. We may not see visions, like St. Paul or like Jean-Marc Potdevin, but the Real Presence of Jesus Who comes to us in the Eucharist is also our real food and real drink, our strength, our courage, our Remedy for loneliness. This Jesus is on fire with hunger for each of our souls. This Jesus thirsts to possess our undivided hearts as his own. With him, in him, and through him, we can know the greatest joy on earth and the greatest desire to love the brothers and sisters who are also united to us in the heart of Jesus.
"The Eucharist communicates the Lord's love for us: a love so great that it nourishes us with Himself; a freely given love, always available to every person who hungers and needs to regenerate his own strength."
- Pope Francis, in a homily in St. John Lateran Square, June 19, 2014)