Reflections on Life
By Father Jerome LeDoux
Imagine our not needing a medicine cabinet or any of the medicines contained in it, because our body has a built-in medicine cabinet. Better still, we have something more potent than the medicines from a medicine cabinet, since our body was designed with its own immune system that cripples, disables and destroys all foreign, harmful microbes.
It is marvelous that our body is loaded with myriads of good microbes that enable us to breathe, eat, drink, digest, grow and execute every imaginable physical, emotional and mind-boggling intellectual feat. Standing astride the entire universe itself, we humans are the crown jewels, the very masterpieces of all creation after the dazzling angels in heaven.
So small that they are detectable only through ultrapowerful microscopes, one hand can hold more microbes than the number of people on earth. Our stomach alone contains untold trillions of both good and bad bacteria. It is up to us to determine whether the good or bad bacteria will be the stronger and will prevail in our life-and-death health struggle.
We talk about a content stomach. But we also speak about the unmentionables: loose or constipated bowels, irregularity, irritable bowel syndrome or stomach ache. It is no wonder that we address the unmentionables often, since many of our pains, feelings of discomfort, funk, dreariness and lack of energy begin in our afflicted bowels. To our joy, feelings of comfort, well-being, abundant energy and joie de vivre also begin in our bowels.  It takes very little imagination to understand that our digestive system is the keeper of health. Take a good look at yourself several times every day. Do you look run-down, overweight, sluggish and aging beyond your years? Or do you see a vibrant, alive, interested and interesting human being ready for all challenges?
At first, it sounds strange that 70-80 percent of our immune system is situated in our bowels. But, outnumbering the cells in our body 10 to one, some 100 trillion bacteria thrive in our digestive system. We also understand that we must avoid eating foods that promote the growth of bacteria that create unhealthy metabolites.
When Napoleon Bonaparte said, “An army marches on its stomach,” he obviously meant that an army without food supplies will perish. But little did he know that there is an additional meaning whose earthiness and yet profundity is mind-bending.
The amazing implications of this one fact are so astounding that they deserve our rapt attention every day, every hour. It is not just an army that marches on its stomach. It is all of us human beings without exception who are so dependent on our stomach that we simply must control the good things as well as the bad that transpire inside our bowels.
In a word, for better or for worse, we eat the foods that we do and drink the liquids that we ingest. I am sure that you get the picture already, because, before I write another word, you are already boarding the train on a guilt trip or you are congratulating yourself.
“Trash in, trash out,” is true not only of a computer but of our body as well. How can we possibly expect to reap positive outcomes if we constantly fill our stomachs with junk?
The first contraband food items that come to mind are the heavy meats, shellfish, cholesterol-laden catfish or red snapper, dairy products that taste so good but deposit plaque in our veins and arteries, and the garden-variety junk foods that feature the fats, salt and sugar to which most human beings have become unhealthily and dangerously addicted.
The old folks would sometimes say of someone, “He/she has a good constitution.” It is part of that perennial discussion, “Nature versus nurture.” A good constitution is what Mother Nature has given us through our genes. What we do with those genes is our choice in collaborating with our environment to enable our genes to be all they can be.
It is strictly up to you, whether you will strengthen or weaken your immune system by avoiding the murderers row menu just mentioned, or by ingesting the foods and drinks that enable intestinal cells’ antibodies to engage and kill all foreign bacteria and viruses.
(Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD, is pastor of Our Mother of Mercy Parish in Fort Worth, Texas. He has written “Reflections on Life since 1969.)

Complete the circle
By George Evans
The Synod of Bishops on the family has ended and a final document has been agreed on by the Bishops.  Traditional Catholic teaching has been reaffirmed after questions were raised following the October 13 delivery of a midterm report “that used strikingly conciliatory language toward people with ways of life contrary to church teaching, including divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples and those in same-sex unions.”(Catholic News Service 10/18)
It should be noted that frank discussion was held on several points and “Pope Francis said he welcomed the assembly’s expressions of disagreement.” (Catholic News Service, 10/18)
Synod fathers voted on each of the document’s 62 paragraphs. “All received a simple majority, but three failed to gain the two-thirds supermajority ordinarily required for approval of synodal documents.” (Catholic News Service, 10/18)
Two of those paragraphs dealt with a controversial proposal by Cardinal Walter Kasper that would make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. The document noted disagreements on the subject and recommended further study. The document’s section on homosexuality, which also fell short of supermajority approval, was significantly changed from its counterpart in the midterm report and included a quote from a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: ‘There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’ (Catholic News Service, 10/18)
I think it is thus fair to say that nothing earth shaking happened at the Synod. Tradition was affirmed and some controversial questions were left open for further discussion.  Apparently the synod’s final report will serve as an agenda for the October 2015 world synod on the family, which will make recommendations to the pope.
It is also important to realize that synodal documents, whatever they may conclude, do not create doctrine.  As Catholic News Service informs us, “Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters that the absence of a supermajority indicated a lack of consensus and a need for more discussion, but stressed that none of the document carried doctrinal weight.  Pope Francis said he welcomed the assembly’s expressions of disagreement.”
The fact that free and, at times, heated discussion was the order of the day and was welcomed by the pope may be one of the great achievements of the synod. The church we all love moves slowly and carefully when it does move. The Holy Spirit we believe is always with it and embraces it with His love and concern. Pope Francis has started a process under the Spirit’s care and guidance. Of all the family issues with pressing pastoral concern, to me the one with the greatest immediate need for action is the divorced and civilly remarried Catholic issue. Presently church teaching excludes these church members from the Eucharist short of some very narrow pastoral exceptions. Many members are now former members because of frequent difficulty with the annulment process, lack of welcoming embrace from pastor or fellow church members or simple frustration, whether right or wrong, from the sense of condemnation by the church of their birth and all of their life. I have to believe that we can find with the help of the Holy Spirit a true and faithful solution to such situations that enriches rather than harms the Church of the loving and merciful Jesus. I know others may disagree on this point. I know that others may choose other family issues as more needy of immediate attention. My thought is to let the discussion/debate continue with prayer and discernment with a plea for God’s help.
For those of us not facing either of the two situations  which apparently engendered  the most debate in the recent synod – civil remarriage and homosexuality – it is critical to embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters who are. Our love, our prayer and our concern are not optional. Since we all are made in God’s image and likeness as Genesis reminds us early in the Bible and since we are our brother’s keeper as Gen 4:8-11 teaches in that wonderful unanswered question, we must pray for and support our pope and bishops during this coming year so they feel the hand of the Holy Spirit in making those decisions which best serve persons in all circumstances during the next year. Unless we each do our part we cannot rest in the peace of a job well done. Our church and all its people deserve the best from us all.
(George Evans is a pastoral minister at Jackson St. Richard Parish.)