My food is to do the will of him who sent me

Here's the reflection I shared during tonight's Healing Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford:

Jesus said, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.’ (John 4.32-35)

Food provides the body with essential nutrients for growth, energy, and repair. These provide the building blocks for growth and development, the energy to fuel our daily activities, and the components needed to repair and maintain cells.

What was essential for Jesus, what provided the energy to fuel his activities, what provided the building blocks for his growth and development and what enabled him to repair and maintain was doing the will of God and completing the missional task God had given to him. What constitutes our food and are we on the same page as Jesus?

Earlier this week we gave thanks for the life and witness of Bonaventure, who was both Friar and Bishop. Born at Bagnoreggio in Italy in about the year 1218, Bonaventure became a Franciscan Friar in 1243 and his intellectual ability was soon recognised by his Order and by the Church. At the age of thirty-six he was elected Minister General of the Franciscans and virtually re-founded the Order, giving it a stability in training and administration previously unknown. He upheld all the teachings of St Francis except in the founder's attitude to study, since Francis felt the Order should possess no books. He clearly saw, with Francis, that the rôle of the Friars was to support the Church through its contemporary structures rather than to be an instrument for reform. He also believed that the best conversions came from the good example of those anxious to renew the Church, rather than by haranguing or passing laws. He was appointed a cardinal-bishop against his will, and kept the papal messengers waiting while he finished the washing up. He brought about a temporary reunion of the churches in the east and the west but, before it was repudiated, he died on this day at Lyons in the year 1274.

On his feast day, we prayed one of his prayers; a prayer that our food may be to do the will of him who sent us and to complete his work. Let us pray: Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee. Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and super substantial bread, having all sweetness and savour and every delightful taste. May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savour; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquillity, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably. Amen.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Fay - The Healing Day.