At that moment, we would feel as if our lives were in our hands, filled with the time and energy needed to devote ourselves to something worthwhile. When we spoke about chastity, we concluded that life is in fact made up of time + energy + fundamental choice. We also noted that animals and plants, indeed all living beings in general, are formed by time and energy governed by nature; only humans have self-awareness, are conscious of possessing time and energy, and know that is up to them and not nature to regulate, use, and give meaning and purpose to their lives.
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life... (Jn. 6:27) -- After the multiplication of loaves, the crowds thinking that they have found the golden egg hen, went looking for more bread, like the Samaritan woman who went every day to the well to search for more water. Jesus advised them that for this sort of bread that keeps them alive, they would have to work. “God feeds the birds of the air but he does not put the food in their nests", the birds do have to go out and collect this food which God provides for them in nature. Whoever does not want to work should not eat, says St. Paul; the bread that sustains our physical life must come from our sweat and labour.
Like the life of other living beings, our lives also cannot be reduced to the vicious circle of work to eat and eat to work, not even to bread and circus as the Romans used to say, i.e. bread and fun. To be alive and to live are not the same thing; we do not live to stay alive but rather we are alive in order to live. Against this backdrop how sad it is, and senseless, are the lives of those who waste their time and energy pursuing means of life, that is, wasting their lives making more and more money thinking that by so doing they can increase their lifespan. "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk. 12:20)
Hence Jesus warned us to work not so much for the bread that perishes but to spend our time and energy to work for the bread that endures for eternity; and rather than just a little time, the gospel suggests that this should be the main activity of our lives: Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all the things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:31-33)
Jesus is the bread we are the bread
Jesus' discourse on the Eucharist ends with the declaration that he is the bread, and therefore whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood is the one who has eternal life; something that the Jews and many of Jesus' disciples could not bring themselves to accept fearing others would see them as cannibals and vampires. For this reason they abandoned the Master and Peter speaking on behalf of the remaining few recognized that these words of Jesus were words of eternal life, that is, words that lead to life eternal.
The nature of the bread that lasts for eternal life, which nourishes and makes the eternal life possible, is different from the bread that feeds this life and perishes. Just as the water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman, this bread also comes from within.
Furthermore, Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, is the person whom we need to imitate to stay in the truth and to have an authentic life -- the only way that leads to the Father and to eternal life. For this reason just as Jesus is the bread we too are called to be bread. We are then the time and the energy that feed and give life to the human value or cause which becomes our fundamental choice. So, just like Christ, we too are called to "put all the meat on the grill" as a Spanish saying would have it.
The fundamental option as a commitment
The fundamental option is the decision that takes over our whole life, it is the objective, the goal, and what gives meaning, colour and flavour to everything each and every day of our lives. It is the flame that is kept burning by the fuel of our life, i.e. our time and energy. It is the point of support of the lever that raises the world in Archimedes' principle. It is the motivation, the inspiration that brings together all our resources and puts them at the service of a goal, a target that we have chosen.
Life is made up of many choices and decisions; they are what give colour, flavour, aroma and meaning to our existence. These small choices generally affect us in one or more ways and may impact us a little or a lot but never to the point of changing our entire life. The fundamental choice, however, is the decision of all decisions, the master choice, the mother of all choices because it influences our present and our future; for the most part it is irreversible; it is the reason of our being. It is the purpose to which we give our time and energy; it is the mouth to which we are the bread.
The cause, or fundamental choice, to which Nelson Mandela fed with his life was to end Apartheid in South Africa; for Beethoven, it was the music, for Picasso, to paint, for Gandhi, it was the independence of India through nonviolent means; for some parents, their children; for the teachers, their students; for the doctors, the sick... More than a profession, life becomes a mission.
There is no life without commitment
They live as if they will not die... and die as if they had never lived. Dalai Lama
When it comes the time to make our fundamental choice, we are at the crossroad of our lives or in a more up-to-date way of thinking, at least in Europe, we are at the roundabout of our lives. We cannot stay there forever, or for a longer period than it is acceptable. Often when we remain undecided for too long, life ends up deciding for us, or the government does as is the case in some countries with respect to the unions of young unmarried couples who live together where after some time, the state considers them married. In Lisbon there is a roundabout known as "the clock roundabout" because at the center of that roundabout there is a big clock. It is as if it was telling us that while we remain undecided, time passes, and some opportunities do not appear a second time in life...
"I want to keep all my options open" -- I used to often hear this said by young Americans and Canadians. During childhood and early youth, everything is in fact open. But to keep your options forever open would be like being one of those statues we often see in the middle of an intersection; avoiding all commitments in order to be free is like being alive but not living and risking dying without ever having lived.
For those who do not know where to go there are no favourable winds -- "You can't have your cake and eat it too"; "You can't have the sun in the threshing floor and the rain in the meadow". At an intersection or in a roundabout, to choose a path, to say 'yes' to a path, means to say 'no' to all others. You cannot compromise; life ends up being heavily penalized for those who pretend to live more than one life; often to those who want everything they end up losing everything instead... To marry a woman means to say 'no' to all others; to be ordained as a priest means to say 'no' to marriage. To immigrate to a country means to leave behind one's own. All of us were or will one day be at the crossroad or the roundabout of our existence: that is the day when we take our life in our own hands and decide what to do with it.
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life ... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. (Jn. 10:17-18) -- We were free while stopped at the intersection deciding on which path to take; we are free while going around in a roundabout without choosing a path; life is a gift and only by giving it up can it be lived. We have no choice, in fact, we either give our life or it is taken away from us, like the one who hid his talent. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 16:25)
Absolute freedom does not exist nor would it serve any purpose. We are free until the moment when we voluntarily sacrifice this freedom in a commitment to life, to society and to the world. From that moment on, we begin our obedience to that commitment. Freedom exists in life only to be delivered. Once we are committed to the fundamental choice we no longer possess ourselves, after that to live is to obey...
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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