Sometimes our lives are filled with drama.  Everything around us seems to be coming undone.  Where there was once order in our lives and we felt we had some understanding of life, there now seems to be only chaos.  Life becomes filled with uncertainty.  This drama, chaos and uncertainty can drain us of all of the joy, excitement and wonder we had previously experienced in life and can leave us feeling spent, abandoned and alone.  Everything seems to be difficult and there are endless challenges to face each day.  We continue to run the race but it seems like we are getting farther and farther behind.  Like Alice running with the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, we feel like we are getting nowhere:  “‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’  ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.  If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’”  We feel overmatched and outpaced.  We come to a place where we just want to give up and cry out, “I’m done with this.”  Elijah has come to that place in his continuous battle with the prophets of Baal. (1Kings 19,4-8)  He feels he is alone in his battle to remain faithful to the Lord and he has run out of energy for life.  He has decided that it is time to quit, to escape from life’s dramas and to lay down and give up.  Elijah enters the desert of his life and wants to quit just one day in, but an angel of the Lord touches him and gives him food to eat and water to drink and rouses him from his sleep.  We all have a journey to make and we can’t quit half-way through.  We must see it through to the end.  We must persevere through life’s trials.

    We all have a journey to make and sometimes that journey passes through the desert.  The desert can be a harsh and demanding place that will severely test us.  There in the desert we can find a way of life that will lead us to new life.  Isaiah spoke about such a place:  “A highway will be there, called the holy way; no one unclean may pass over it, nor fools go astray on it…It is for those with a journey to make, and on it the redeemed shall walk.” (Is 35,8.10)  The Lord has also promised to give us food and drink to sustain us in the time of our testing.  “He will be gracious to you when you cry out, as soon as he hears he will answer you.  The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst.  No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher, while from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:  “This is the way; walk in it,” when you turn to the right or to the left.” (Is 30,19-21)  The Lord cannot walk the road for us but he can teach us a way of life through the desert.  He sends his angels to be our companions on the journey and to help us along the way.  Like Elijah, often in our lives when we wander from the path that gives life, we are touched by an angel who directs us back to the right path and helps us to discover our hidden and forgotten resources.

    Jesus reminds the people of his time that God has promised to teach them a way of life.  “They shall all be taught by God.  Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” (Jn 6,45)  Jesus is the Teacher who has words of life to offer us in the midst of life’s journey through the desert of life’s trials and challenges.  He whispers in our ears his words of everlasting life and he feeds us with the bread of life that brings us eternal life.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life…I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn 6,47-51)  The angels in our life go out like truant officers to take us by the shoulder and to turn us back toward Jesus.  They point us toward Jesus who has the words of everlasting life and they point us toward the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, which feeds us and strengthens us to persevere on our journey through the desert of life.  Jesus, the living bread, surpasses all manna and hearth cakes in bringing life, for those who eat this bread will not die.

    The angels will not let us quit on our journey of life.  They know the supreme value of the bread of life and its power to restore us to life and prepare us for eternal life.  “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph 4,30) by putting on a defeatist attitude and giving up but “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us” (Eph 5,1f)  Jesus has given us his own flesh and blood as food for our journey, as the living bread of life.  If you are on the verge of quitting life’s journey, feel the touch of an angel and get back to the Eucharist where you can be restored to eternal life, “else the journey will be too long for you!” (1Kings 19,7)