Apse of St. Joseph Abbey in St. Benedict, Louisiana
(18th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on August 1 & 2, 2015 at St. Rocco's Church in Johnston, R.I.; See Exodus 16:2-15 and John 6:24-35)
Are you a grumbler?
Our readings for this weekend could prompt us to consider that
question. Do we sometimes find ourselves
caught up in the negativity of grumbling, complaining and murmuring when things
are not going well in our lives or in the world around us?
In our first reading for this weekend, from the Book of Exodus, we hear about the
Israelites and their journey through the desert. We already know that God has saved them from
slavery and what would have been certain death in the land of Egypt. He brought them out—with great power,
tremendous care and unmistakable providence—in a single night. He has promised to lead them through to the
Promised Land. But now, here in the
desert, they have hit a low point. They
are hungry and thirsty, and suddenly they begin to grumble:
The whole Israelite
community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them, “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand
in the Land of Egypt…”
—Exodus 16:2-3
Moses will go on to explain to the people that they are, in
fact, not grumbling against him or Aaron; when they say those things, they are
actually grumbling against God! (see Exodus 16:8). “Would
that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the Land of Egypt…”
It is as if they are saying, “We would be better off dead than to
wait here in the desert for God to provide for us.” Grumbling is an offense against God, who loved
us into existence and sustains us each moment by that same love.
Thankfully, God does not begrudge us when we grumble. He says to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites” (Exodus 16:12), and far from withholding His care from them, He
desires all the more to give them bread from heaven and food that will satisfy
them. He says to Moses, “Tell them: In the evening you shall eat
flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may
know that I, the Lord, am your God” (Exodus
16:12).
If we are honest we can admit that grumbling and complaining
are a perennial temptation for us.
Within the Church, in relationships on the human level, we can easily
find things and persons to complain about.
Certainly in government—on a state and national level—we are confronted
daily with frustrations and failures that are ripe for grumbling; not to
mention the experiences among acquaintances, friends and family members that
consistently irritate us.
But does grumbling and complaining ever solve anything or
alleviate the problems we face? Does it not,
in fact, make things worse? Isn’t it the
case that grumbling can bring other people into that negativity which has
already caused us sorrow and disappointment?
Grumbling is a nasty habit that serves no good purpose
whatsoever, but have you ever considered that grumbling could actually be deadly? There is a Benedictine abbey located in St.
Benedict, Louisiana called St. Joseph Abbey and it is replete with magnificent
murals and paintings. All of those
paintings—in the refectory where the monks eat and in the church itself—were
completed by the same monk, Dom Gregory de Wit, OSB.
Dom Gregory began his monastic life in Belgium, and as a
young man he travelled to such places as Italy and Germany where he honed his
skills as an artist. Around the time of
the Second World War, when it was obviously not safe for a monk to be traveling
around Europe, Dom Gregory found himself in the United States by the providence
of God. It was then that he was
commissioned to paint various biblical and religious scenes in St. Joseph
Abbey.
In the apse, high above the altar, Dom Gregory painted Christ
in glory, reigning in the new and heavenly Jerusalem depicted in the Book of
Revelation. At the place where heaven
and earth meet, below the glorious Christ and just above the eight clear windows that pour
down light into the sanctuary, are eight sheep representing the eight
Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are the
pure of heart…(see Matthew 5:1-12). Dom Gregory wanted to communicate that this is the way that leads to eternal
life with God; these are the dispositions
and the virtues that draw us into union with Christ.
Just below each of these Beatitudes, however, Dom Gregory
painted the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, anger, lust, greed, envy, gluttony and
sloth. These are the things, embedded in
an impenitent heart, which can lead to the loss of our eternal salvation. He wanted to contrast those two very
different paths. But with eight
Beatitudes (plus eight windows), and
only Seven Deadly Sins, Dom Gregory was left with one empty niche. Into that niche he added what could be
considered, according to Dom Gregory, the Eighth Deadly Sin: Grumbling!
Dom Gregory takes his inspiration from the Rule of St.
Benedict, which denounces grumbling over half a dozen times! St. Benedict knew that grumbling and
complaining could ruin a community; that complaining and murmuring destroys
relationships with each other and can even ruin our relationship with God. He wrote, “Above all, let not the evil of
murmuring appear for any reason whatsoever in the least word or sign”
(Rule of St. Benedict 34:6). While it is true that we are not all Benedictine monks, are we nonetheless able to recognize
the kind of damage that can happen when we fall into the habitual sin of
grumbling?
There is a remarkable book written by C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce. It is not about marriage and divorce but
about the divorce, or separation, between heaven and hell. The book begins with a rather unruly cast of
characters who board a bus in a dingy, rainy, gray town and make their way
towards the mountains way off in the distance.
The further away they get from that dreary town, and the closer they
come to the mountains, with the sun coming up in the distance, the clearer and more beautiful things become. That gray town was hell,
and the place they are journeying towards, far up into the mountains, is
heaven.
Suddenly the bus grinds to a halt about mid-way there, and
the people get out on to the plain.
Persons that they knew on earth, as well as some strangers, come down from
the mountains with the purpose of talking these travelers into coming back to
heaven with them. It sounds simple
enough, right? But amazingly many of
them choose not to go because they insist on holding onto whatever it was that
they were attached to on earth! They
cling tenaciously to those deadly sins, like the ones that Dom Gregory painted
in St. Joseph Abbey. They are angry, and refuse to let go of the
unforgiveness that has kept them from God’s mercy; they are proud, and insist on seeing only
themselves as the center of the universe; they are envious of all that they felt entitled to on earth, etc.
At one point, however, the main character sees a woman
coming towards him, and she does nothing but complain. After about a page and a half, the reader can
easily see why she is referred to simply as “the Grumbler”! Oh, the
awful things that have happened to her; how little consideration she receives;
no one understands her; and on and on it goes.
The main character turns towards the good spirit beside him,
troubled, and says, “That unhappy creature doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of
soul that ought to be even in danger of damnation. She isn’t wicked; she’s only a silly,
garrulous old woman who has got into a habit of grumbling…”
The good spirit turns to him and questions whether, in fact,
she is even now a grumbler. The main
character points out that, after listening to her ad nauseum, that should be perfectly clear! Then, remarkably, the good spirit says:
“Aye, but ye misunderstand me.
The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble. If there is a real woman—even the least trace
of one—still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again. If there’s one wee spark under all those
ashes, we’ll blow it until the whole pile is red and clear. But if there’s nothing but ashes we’ll not go
on blowing them in our own eyes forever.
They must be swept up.”
—C.S. Lewis, The Great
Divorce, Chapter 9.
The point that C.S. Lewis is making is that grumbling, like
any of the sins that we let take control of our lives, can reduce us to
something much less than what God created us for. We become, somehow, less substantial, less
human and very different from the image and likeness of God that we were
created in. In some of his other
writings, Lewis insists that each of us has the potential within our human
freedom to become either a glorious creature of unimaginable beauty or a
monstrosity such as God never intended. Grumbling
can turn us in to the latter.
So what is the solution?
What would God have us consider if we are to avoid the sin of grumbling
and to become the men and women God has always created us to be? The answer is found in our Gospel for this
weekend. It was in last week’s Gospel,
and we will hear it again in the Sunday Gospel Readings for the rest of this
month. For five consecutive weekends the
Church listens to the Bread of Life Discourse from St. John’s Gospel. Jesus Christ will
announce, over and over again, that He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven. As He announces this weekend:
I am the bread of
life; whoever comes to me shall never hunger, and whoever believes in me will
never thirst.
—John 6:35
Receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ fills us and
satisfies us, giving us that supernatural strength to fight against evil and to
grow in the life of virtue and grace.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches of the awesome power of the
Eucharist in the soul disposed and prepared to receive so great a gift. For those who are in a state of grace (who have not committed any unconfessed, grave sins), the Catechism teaches, "Communion... preserves, increases, and
renews the life of grace received at Baptism.” It
is that powerful! Furthermore, receiving
Holy Communion in a state of grace “wipes away venial sins” (CCC,
#1394) and “preserves us from future mortal sins” (CCC, #1395). What a tremendous gift God gives to those who
long for this Bread of Life!
Therefore, this
weekend, the choice is ours. Will we grumble
and complain, over and over again, about all the problems in our lives and in
the world around us? Will we allow that
kind of negativity to consume us and draw us further away from God and those
around us? Or will we choose to unite
ourselves to Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, who alone satisfies and makes us
whole? Coming to Him this weekend and
believing in Him, we discover the great meaning of life and the grace that
leads us through this world with great passion, fervor and faith, and that will
lead us, ultimately, to eternal life in the world to come.
