Krysallis

Discontent is part of the human condition. We try to better our lot in life, our neighborhoods and communities, and social conditions. The Liberation Movement is born of a searing discontent over the oppression, poverty, and injustice throughout the world and the social systems that cause and maintain them. Everybody has a hungry heart.

Like every aspect of the human condition, sin lurks waiting to pounce, distorting, confusing, lying, turning the good into evil. In the first reading of our Liturgy today, the discontent of the Israelites wandering through the desert had brought them to the edge. “Did God bring us out here in the desert to die?” Discontent can be destructive as well as constructive. Discontent fires riots and looting in certain situations. Discontent severs relationships and end marriages. When wed to boredom, discontent can spur violence. Discontent can drive a person to take his or her own life or the lives of others.

The Eucharist is food born of compliant and discontent. In the desert, after the complaint of the Jews reached God’s ears, he rained Manna from heaven for them to eat. In today’s Gospel from John, Jesus speaks of his body and blood being food and drink. Anticipating the hungers of the heart, Jesus promises a new Manna to rain on our discontent.

As long as we are human, the discontent will remain. Communion does not fill us up. Communion does remind us of our faith in the firm promise of God-with-us, giving us the hope to bend our discontent to the good. Our journey through the desert is no longer frought with frustration and deprivation.