If we are truly serious in our Christian duty to make
ourselves “another Christ” who is the pattern of our humanity and the
redeemer of our damaged humanity, then the Christian transformation of
our own selves should not only involve our spiritual faculties—our
intelligence and will—but also our biological or bodily powers.
Thus, when we experience hunger for food or thirst for some
drink, it should not just be food and drink that we should be
interested in. We should not remain in the level of the material
aspect of our life. Our hunger and thirst should also lead us to God.
In fact, more than food and drink, it should be God, his
will and ways that we should be more interested in. We have to train
ourselves to realize that our biological hunger and thirst can fully
be satisfied only when we fulfill the will of God.
This truth of our faith was graphically demonstrated in that
episode where Christ met a Samaritan woman beside the well and where
the apostles offered him some bread to eat. That’s in Chapter 4 of the
gospel of St. John.
When the Samaritan woman asked him about the living water he
was offering her, Christ said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be
thirsty again (referring to the water at the well), but whoever drinks
the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them
will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn
4,12-14)
In this particular case, Christ is telling the woman about a
water that is more important than the natural water. This is the water
that refers to having a life with God.
The same idea is highlighted when the apostles offered
Christ some bread to eat. Christ retorted, “I have food to eat that
you know nothing about…My food is to do the will of him who sent me
and to finish his work.” (Jn 4,32.34)
We obviously have to find food and drink that would meet our
bodily needs. That is part of God’s will for us. But we should go
further than that. We have to see to it that our hunger and thirst for
food and drink would lead us to God. Otherwise, remaining only in the
meeting our bodily needs would trap us into the dynamics of
self-indulgence which is the antithesis of what true love is.
Our hunger and thirst should lead us to God and as a
consequence should lead us also to others. They should make us praise
God and express our willingness to follow his will which is also for
us to love and serve the others.
This is a truth of our faith that is worth clarifying and
spreading around, since it would make live our Christianity with
greater integrality. It would be Christianity that touches on our
bodily dimension, and not just on the spiritual aspects of our life.
Perhaps the practice of saying a little prayer before and
after meals can be a good way of to remind us of this truth of our
faith. What we eat and drink should not just be food and water. What
is involved is assimilating the will of God in our life.
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