“Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.”

“Give them some food yourselves.”

          Different cultures have different ways of eating. Most of the world uses food to eat their food, rather than silverware. Mexicans expertly wield tortillas to pick up seemingly very messy dishes while keeping clean fingers, Ethiopians do the same with a fermented pancake-like bread, which substitutes not only for silverware but even traditionally for plates, and many Asian cultures use rice to pick up whatever other dish is served.

          I once saw a priest friend from Nigeria enjoying a very tasty goat stew with a bowl of yellow goop that he used to pick up the meat. I asked about the goop, and he showed me a box of powdered mix he used to prepare it. It was basically colored cornstarch.

          “You know you’re basically eating nothing when you eat this, right?” I probably could have found a more sensitive way to phrase it, but nutritionally I wasn’t far off the mark, because a powder mix made of cornstarch just yields water held in suspension as a goop. (It turns out that the powder mix in question was a substitute for a Nigerian equivalent of tortillas or rice made from cassava root, which is very far from “eating nothing.” But that’s a story for another day.)

          If you fill up on cornstarch goop, it won’t be long before you’re hungry again, because you haven’t given your body any real nutrition. There’s been a lot of attention lately given to ultra-processed foods that, no matter how much manufactured protein they contain, leave you hungry a short time later. The problem extends far beyond food, though. We live in a “ultra processed” world. We are fed not just ultra processed food, but ultra processed entertainment, ultra processed education, and we are increasingly ground by the world information economy into ultra processed work.

          It’s little surprise, then, that the world also offers us ultra processed religion. Ultra processed religion takes place when opportunities that are meant to be supplements to our normative religious practice become substitutes. It’s when people who are perfectly healthy and have adequate means of transportation “go to Mass online” (a complete contradiction) by watching a livestream (which, again, is meant to be a means for the sick and homebound to stay connected to their parish, not a convenience for those travelling or juggling a busy weekend). Ultra processed religion is when our “real” parish or diocese is the bishops, priests, and Catholic commentators we follow online rather than the local Church God the Lord has planted us in, or when the most formative influence in our lives comes through a podcast or video clips on social media. Again, none of these things are bad. It’s great that there are so many opportunities to grow in knowledge about the Faith. But these, like a protein bar, are supplements, not substitutes, for the Church incarnated in the real, physical world, through which we are fed with true rich fare.

          Of course, many people have turned to these supplements precisely because they haven’t always been given rich fare. But our goal here is to change that. We are answering the Lord’s call – “Give them some food yourselves!” – animated and multiplied by the Lord’s grace, like the five loaves and two fishes in the Gospel today.

          Ten years ago, our parish started the newest parish school in our Diocese to provide the rich fare of Catholic education, a school with a simple and clear mission: “to form true disciples of Jesus Christ in His Church through a Catholic classical liberal arts curriculum.” When I arrived here two years ago, I was blown away by how students in our school would look me in the eyes and eagerly engage in class, their personalities not having been liquified by over-exposure to screens. And then I had to re-think all of my standard classroom visit schticks, because they already knew almost everything I would normally teach them about!

          Another example of the rich fare our young people are receiving: They love Adoration. When teenage boys come up to me and thank me not for pizza, not for open gym time, but for Adoration, I know their hearts are being formed in their families and in this parish to love rich fare.

          Our parish has also invested in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-based learning experience for young children in our school and religious education program, in which they come to an intuitive grasp of the truths of the Faith, involving the whole intellect and the whole person. That requires investment in advanced training for staff and volunteers, and greater commitment from those involved. Rich fare takes work, but it’s worth it.

          We’re preparing rich fare in the new brotherhood and sisterhood of Fraternus and Fidelis. Rather than just dropping kids off for an hour or two at a typical youth group, we’re coming together as parish to take mutual responsibility for the Christian formation of our young people. Youth and adults young and old will be nourished by rich fare, developing deeper relationships and engaging in mentorship as they grow as disciples.

          As Catholics, the way that we worship God is part of this rich fare. Rather than the ultra-processed religion of a rock concert and a TED talk, we come to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as the immaculate victim, Jesus Christ, offers Himself back to the Father through sacramental signs, feeding us with the rich fare of His own Body and Blood. We do so with worship that does not beat to the rhythms of the world, but connects us through timeless beauty to the eternally present mystery of Christ.

          It takes work to appreciate rich fare. We like those ultra-processed foods. But we know that the work it takes to prepare and appreciate rich food is worth it. And so it is with our worship. When we are enveloped in an ultra-processed world, it takes work to appreciate rich fare in historically rooted worship. Unbeknownst to most of us, we are now exposed on a regular basis to AI-generated music. The fact that, for most of us, this AI-generated music is indistinguishable from the real thing ought to give us some pause about the music we’ve been listening to and even worshiping with along the way to this point, just like we’re starting to question some of the decisions we’ve made about what we eat that have lead us to the point of an ultra-processed diet.

          That’s why a key way we’re striving to have rich fare in our parish is the renewal of our parish music program. In our strategic planning process last year, we saw that one of the ways our parish sees itself at its best is through our reverence for Christ present in the Eucharist. That appreciative inquiry led us to make a strategic investment in Sacred Music, an investment of not only financial resources but of increased commitment from parish volunteers, who have risen to the challenge of being a part of this great project of providing the rich fare of Catholic sacred music to our parish.

          We’re excited to take another step forward with the launching of the Mystic Rose Consort, an auditioned ensemble that will provide even richer fare at our major feast days through complex, full Gregorian chants and masterpieces of choral repertoire. You will hear them for the first time at our Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin on Saturday, August 15 at 9 a.m. I hope you’ll be there!

          “For I am convinced that neither … present things, nor future things, … nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The ultra-processed world cannot separate us from Christ because we have the freedom to choose the rich fare, the harder to appreciate but always worth the effort rich fare of the Gospel, of worship that connects us to the eternal and universal. “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XVIII Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXVI