Of All Things Visible and Invisible

Gospel Reflection for August 4, 2024 - John 6:24-35

When therefore the multitude saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they took shipping, and came to Capharnaum, seeking for Jesus.

And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him: Rabbi, when camest thou hither?

Jesus answered them, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled.

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you. For him hath God, the Father, sealed.

They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?

Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent.

They said therefore to him: What sign therefore dost thou shew, that we may see, and may believe thee? What dost thou work?

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world.

They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread.

And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. (John 6:24-35 DRA)

The title of this reflection could seem confusing. This line from the Nice creed which we recite at every Sunday Mass is not found in the readings for today. Nevertheless, I believe it is entirely appropriate and actually gets to the heart of the integral meaning and shared theme of these passages. I chose it as the result of a conversation I had with my father, the wisest man I have ever known, a few weeks ago. He made the observation that, while every word of the creed is important, perhaps the most important is this one: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker… of all things visible and invisible (visibílium ómnium et invisibílium).” In a truly profound way, this doctrine, taught in what is the supreme statement (symbolon) of the Catholic faith, is what divides the human race into those who believe only in what can be seen, touched, tasted and smelled, what is purely material and immediate - and those who believe in something more, in a world that goes beyond mere sense experience. 

This is the divide which St. Augustine had to bridge in his conversion from Manichaeism to Catholicism, one which took him a long time and required the grace of God to accomplish. Indeed, it is what separates the classic, Socratic tradition of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics, the latter of whom, like those gazing at the wall in Plato's allegory of the cave, could believe only in what they could see, whereas Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their intellectual heirs emerge out of the cave to see through the lens of the material into the spiritual mysteries beyond. Today, the divide is deeper than ever, as the influence of the Enlightenment and the scientistic positivism of modern philosophy has led countless people throughout the world to never extend their vision beyond what their bodily eyes can see. Now, to not only believe in the invisible but also to live as if it is true and even more important than the physical world marks one as what some today call “weird” or worse - “closed-minded,” “superstitious,” “fanatical,” etc. To recite these words of the creed and earnestly seek to live by them is today an act of great courage.

By 4edges - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73850232

But are these words limited only to intellectual belief in spiritual, non-material realities? That is certainly important, but the readings today reveal that there is much more to it. The heart must also desire what is higher, that which is truly permanent and eternally fulfilling. Like the Israelites in the first reading and those whom Christ fed with the loaves and fishes in last week's Gospel, many people today live in a way which Socrates and Aristotle described as resembling or even descending below that of a cow, caring only about filling their bellies and satisfying their senses. Socrates observed: “They don’t look upward toward what is truly above… they aren’t filled with what really is nor do they taste of a pleasure that is sure and pure; rather, after the fashion of cattle, always looking down and with their heads bent to the earth and table, they feed, fattening themselves and copulating.” Surgically attached to their smartphones or some other screen, inoculated from any discomfort by an excess of drugs and intoxicants, people today rarely allow themselves the time to think about the impermanence of this life or the inevitability of death. Whatever might remind them of the ubiquity of sin or the need for an objective moral standard and a loving Savior is simply swiped away, replaced by pornography, vapid TikToks, mind-numbing “music” or shallow games. 

These are the people whom St. Paul in the Epistle described as trapped “in the futility of their minds” and “corrupted through deceitful desires” - the futility of worldliness and the deceit of desires which appear to bring happiness but can only grant temporary and superficial pleasure without any deep or lasting fulfillment. As Boethius and St. Thomas Aquinas taught, nothing finite can truly make us happy - as spiritual beings, we are designed in God's image and can only rest in Him. We are made for the unseen, which we come to know through the seen; God made us to be incarnate, ensouled bodies, revealing His mysteries through the sacramental images of Creation, yet only the unseen, the infinite, the divine can make us happy. The glamor of sin and the glitter of the modern world hide an emptiness which leads only to despair. 

For the world, the Eucharist can be understood only according to what is seen - the accidental appearance of ordinary bread and wine. From a materialist perspective, then, the Mass is foolish, a waste of time, or at best merely a good communal meal and ethical formation. This is why Protestants rejected it as a “blasphemous fable” and “idolatry” and why the Jansenists of the Enlightenment sought to rationalize the Mass and demystify it from anything that seemed “impractical” - from any reliance on the unseen world. But without this higher existence, nothing truly matters; the impersonal material world cannot give itself meaning and, as Nietzsche realized, we cannot give it meaning, either - we can only delude ourselves that our values and opinions matter and then live accordingly, until we finally admit that everything is futile, including our own lives. 

This is the darkness into which modern man is heading, the Hell which Satan is delighted to watch him walk into, whose road he lines with sensual pleasures and attractive distractions. In the interest of protecting his vices, modern man will tolerate any evil, even the murder of children, the blasphemous transgender mockery of the Last Supper or the blessing of “couples” in unnatural relationships, all to avoid being faced with the true horror of their sins and the meaninglessness of their materialistic lives. As Catholics, we must not allow ourselves to fall into this trap, or see ourselves as immune to it, for in truth, as Pope St. John Paul II taught, “An anti-Christian outlook seeks to minimize the Cross, to empty it of its meaning, and to deny that in it man has the source of his new life. It claims that the Cross is unable to provide either vision or hope. Man, it says, is nothing but an earthly being, who must live as if God did not exist.” (Ut unum sint, 1) 

Even as Catholics, we can still succumb to this, denying any self-sacrifice and becoming obsessed with our money, our pettiness and our diversions while rarely thinking about God or judging our actions according to His law. Filled with the bread of the world, we no longer hunger for the Bread of Life. But we must remember that we are ambassadors of the King, foreigners in a strange land sent by Christ to lead those imprisoned in the materialistic darkness of Plato's cave, doomed forever to see only the shadows of worldly vision, into the heavenly light outside, to see what is unseen. This is the supernatural gift which we are called to share with all, the true Bread who comes down from Heaven and alone grants everlasting life.

St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, ora pro nobis!