Which Do You Prefer: Melons and Leeks, or the Bread of Heaven?

blog8-4 - babyThe first reading for daily Mass on Monday (18th week of the year) was taken from the Book of Numbers. It features the Israelites grumbling about the manna in the wilderness:

Would that we had meat for food! We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna (Numbers 11:4-5).

While it is possible for us to marvel at their insolence and ingratitude, the scene presented depicts very common human tendencies. It is not unique to these people once in the desert. Their complaints are too easily our own.

Let’s look at a number of the issues raised and see how it is possible for many of us today to struggle in the same way.

I. They prefer the abundance of food and creature comforts that come along with slavery in Egypt, to the freedom of children of God and the chance to journey to the Promised Land. And this, too easily, is our struggle as well. Jesus points to the Cross, but we prefer the pillow. Heaven is a nice thought, but it is in the future and the journey is a long one.

Too easily we prefer our own version of melons and leeks. Perhaps it is possessions, or power, or popularity. Never mind that the price of them is a kind of bondage to the world and its demands. For when the world grants its blessings, we become enslaved by the fact that we have too much to lose. Hence we will compromise our freedom, which Christ died to purchase for us, and enter into a kind of bondage of sin. We will buy into lies, or commit any number of sins, or perhaps suppress the truth, all in an attempt to stay popular and well-connected. Why? Because we have become so desperate for the world’s blessings that we will make compromises that harm our integrity or hurt other people just to get those things we think we can’t live without.

But we don’t call it bondage. We call it being “relevant,” “modern,” “tolerant,” and “compassionate.”  Yes, as we descend into deeper darkness and bondage to sin and our passions, we are pressured to call it “enlightenment,” “choice,” and “freedom.” So, we use other terms, but it is still bondage for the many who fear breaking free from it.

We are in bondage to Egypt, enslaved to Pharaoh. We prefer that to the freedom of the desert, with its difficult journey to a Promised Land (Heaven) we have not yet fully seen. The pleasures of the world, its melons and leeks, are currently displayed and available for immediate enjoyment.

And so the cry still goes up: “Give us melons; give us leeks; give us cucumbers and fleshpots! Away with the desert; away with the Cross; away with the Promised Land, if it exists at all. It is too far off and too hard to get to. Melons and leeks, please. Give us meat; we are tired of manna!”

II. There is boredom with the manna. While its exact composition is mysterious to us, it would seem that manna could be collected, kneaded like dough, and baked like bread. But as such, it was a fairly plain substance. It seems it was meant more to sustain than to be enjoyed.

The people remembered the melons, leeks, and fleshpots of Egypt, and were bored with this plain manna. Never mind that it was miraculously provided every day by God, in just the right quantity. Even miracles can seem boring after a while to our petulantly demanding desires. The Lord may show us miracles today, but too easily do we demand even more tomorrow.

We are also somewhat like little children who prefer Twinkies and cupcakes to vegetables and other more wholesome foods. Indeed, the Israelites’ boredom with and even repulsion to the miracle food from Heaven does not sound so different from the complaint of many Catholics today that “Mass is boring.”

While it is certainly true that we can work to ensure that the Liturgy reflects the glory it offers, it is also true that God has a fairly stable and consistent diet for us. He exhorts us to stay faithful to the manna: the wholesome food of prayer, Scripture, the Sacraments, and stable, faithful fellowship in union with the Church.

In our fickle spirits, many of us run after the latest fads and movements. Many Catholics say, “Why can’t we be more like the mega-churches with all the latest, including a Starbucks Coffee Café, contemporary music, a rock-star-like pastor delivering sensitive, toned-down preaching with many promises and few demands, and all that jazz?”

But as an old spiritual says regarding this type of person, “Some go to church for to sing and shout, before six months they’s all turned out!” And thus some will leave the Catholic Church and other traditional forms that feature the more routine but stable and steady manner, for the hip and the latest, the melons and leeks. But frequently they find that within six months they’re bored again.

And while the Church is always in need of reform, there is a lot to be said for the slow and steady pace as she journeys through the desert, relying on the less glamorous but more stable and sensible food: the manna of the Eucharist, the Word of God, the Sacred Liturgy, prayer, and fellowship.

III. Who Feeds You? Beyond these liturgical preferences of many for melons and leeks over manna, there is also a manifest preference for the food of this world. There is a tragic tendency for many Catholics, even regular church-goers, to get most of their food not from the Lord, not from Scripture, not from the Church, but from the Egypt of this world.

Most eat regularly at the banquet table of popular entertainment, secular news media, secular talk radio, etc. And they eat this food quite uncritically! The manna is complained about, but the melons and leeks are praised without qualification.

And while it is true that Christians cannot wholly avoid all contact with the world or eschew all its food, when do the melons and leeks ever come up for criticism? When do Christians finally look closely and say, “That is not the mind of God!” When do they ever conclude that this food is inferior to what God offers? When do parents finally walk into the living room, turn off the TV, and tell their children that what they have just seen and heard is not the mind of God?

Tragically, this is rare. The food of this world is eaten in amounts far surpassing the consumption of the food of God. The melons and leeks of the world are praised, while the manna of God is put on trial because it’s not like the food of the world.

For a Christian, of course, this is backwards. The world should be on trial based on the Word of God. Instead, even for most Catholics, the Word of God and the teachings of the Church are on trial by the standards of the world.

So the question is, who is it that feeds you? Is it the world or the Lord? What proportion of your food comes from the Lord and what from the world? Answer honestly! Which is more influential in your daily life and your thinking: the world or the Lord?  Who is really feeding you, informing you, and influencing you? Is it the melons and leeks of this world? Or is it the faithful, stable, even miraculous manna of the Lord and His Church?

These are some probing questions for all of us, drawn from an ancient wilderness. God’s people, who tired of the manna, harmed themselves and others as well. It is easy to blame others for the mess we’re in today, but there are too many Catholics who prefer the melons and leeks of this world and have failed to summon others to the manna given by the Lord.

Have mercy on us, Lord our God. Give us a deep desire for the manna you offer. And having given it to us in abundance, help us to share it as well!

12 Replies to “Which Do You Prefer: Melons and Leeks, or the Bread of Heaven?”

  1. Panis Angelicus. Panem nostrum quotidianum. Our Viaticum. St. Catherine of Sienna lived only on the Holy Eucharist. It must be really the Bread of Heaven and indeed it is. Thanks Monsignor for the enlightenment.

  2. Well,today I think I’ll have my Bread of Heaven in the form of a bun holding a nice big greasy bacon cheeseburger…hold the mayo

      1. Oh,yea?…well,listen,pal….you want to show TRUE gratitude for your daily bread?…then don’t just eat that cheeseburger….eat the HELL out of it!

  3. Making the return to Egypt even more dangerous, I think, is the perception, the deception, that we can return to Egypt and travel toward the Promised Land at the same time, somehow skipping the tough road through the desert. Deciding for both Egypt and the Promised Land.

  4. “Many Catholics say, “Why can’t we be more like the mega-churches with all the latest, including a Starbucks Coffee Café, contemporary music, a rock-star-like pastor delivering sensitive, toned-down preaching with many promises and few demands, and all that jazz?”

    WHAT????

    Pandering to the masses is short sighted. Quite frankly, it’s a dead end road as we are all finite creatures. We lack the innate ability to be greater than ourselves. For that, we need the Lord. Catholics who come up with such silliness (in my limited experience) tend to have one foot out the door already. All the coffee in the world won’t keep them filling pews for long.

    The mass in its truest form, is infinite, like our Lord. Why, why, why, would anyone crave less? I don’t want my finite ego fed, I want my infinite soul fed. I don’t want a priest to make me feel good about my life, I want to live a life I can feel good about, and I want the priest to advise me how to do that!

    It doesn’t seem like rocket science, but as I never studied that, maybe it is.

  5. Also, the Israelites completely forgot about the brick-making, the searching for straw for the bricks, and the killing of the first born sons that was part of their lives in Egypt. There is a forgetting, willful sometimes and not willful other times, that accompanies the falling into sin.

  6. Well, the thing is pain. Pain makes us want to run away. If we’re in pain in the desert (because we’re not there yet – in heaven), we start to miss slavery where pain seemed less painful than today.

  7. Being a radio listener I am pleased with the arrival of Catholic Radio. In fact, that is how I learned of you, Monsignor Pope. You were interviewed on one of their programs. Granted, some of their programs are not to my taste, but compared to the usual political talk shows, it is right up my alley.

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