Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord! The psalmist seeks us to engage us both body and soul. These reflections build on Elijah's' calling to announce the goodness of the Lord and not to worship our human-made Baals. He has just fled for his life from the anger of Ahab and his spirit seems to be emptied of any hope. He is tired of running away from a tyranny of human hands that he has come to a point where he feels like death is the only reward he can hope for. Yet into the midst of his despair and anguish the Lord comes and says get up and eat of the journey will be too long for you. There is a flicker of not just receiving human food but coming into a living relationship with God. This does not happen immediately and he has to be reminded a second time to get up and eat. After a long journey, he lets sits down in a cave and awaits God's voice which does not come in a dramatic cataclysmic event such as a storm, an earthquake or a raging fire but in the quiet zephyr which passes before him. It is in this quiet reflective moment that he encounters the God who will sustain him and enliven him in the realities of life he faces each day.

In a similar way, St Paul speaks to the Ephesians about not grieving the Holy Spirit. He counsels them as though he would counsel children in drawing a contrast between a life which causes disruption and antipathy between people and one which enables people which enables us to befriend each other and befriend ourselves. He speaks powerfully of the voices that cause to hold grudges, to lose our temper, to raise our voices, to call each other names and to foster a spirit of spitefulness. He realises that the violence and hatred we can bear to others can be fostered from within. He urges us rather be kind and forgiving to each other. There is a sense wherein seeking the good for the other we also discover the good for ourselves rather than the other way around. In allowing others to be considered as an encounter with Christ we start to learn what it is to be more human and more diving in the way we pray, think and act.

Our central teaching is not just learnt from a textbook but rather from a person. We are called to learn that Jesus central method of teaching was to come to him and learn. We are called to be people who encounter Jesus in our prayer, our study and our action. This is calling us to be deeply incarnational not compartmentalising these three encounters into separate events but seeing them as essential to any fruitful relationship. He enables us to discover what truly feeds us and tastes good for the body, soul and mind. It is why he reflects that our Eucharist enables this direct encounter with his life. He says, "Anyone who eats this bread will live forever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world." It is this most intimate of moments when we discover that the calling of God touches the deepest part of us which longs for the still moment of being present to the presence. In this place, we discover the eternal now, Jesus Christ, who brings life and hope to our world and echoes the words of the psalmist, "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!"