Bread for the World

Dear Friend,

The intense emotional highs and lows of last week’s election are vivid signs of our times. Franciscan theologian Sister Ilia Delio describes them well when she writes: “The feeling of a destabilized world is creating global depression and anxiety.” Our scriptures this weekend, as they did last week, will speak directly to the dynamics of this social and psychological context.  

“Do not be afraid,” Elijah told the poor widow in our reading last week. She was convinced that she and her son were about to eat their last meal. Elijah assures her God is at work. In line with his great predecessor, Jesus, in the Gospel, pointed to the courage and generosity of a poor widow. In the face of those exploiting the Holy Temple by their greed, God is at work in those who dare to trust. The entire structure will soon collapse, and those in charge don’t have a clue. The widow’s house will rise again in Jesus. Indeed, Jesus himself will become that new Temple, the place where the poor, the widow, and the stranger will always be fed.

In all of this, God’s future was and is now in process. As a wise brother recently reminded me, the strength of our Catholic tradition calls us to stand not so much in a “certain clarity” but rather in a place of trust where “creative tension” gives rise to creative action and a “holy newness.” The extremes that pull at us now, individually and as a community, could not be more tense. Yet there is no more creative and fruitful power than that of the Holy Spirit offered to us by Jesus Christ. In him humble bread (“widowed” and unleavened) becomes the bread of life and we ourselves, partaking it, bread for the world.

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm