Food Has Been Very, Very Good to Me

So it was Assumption Sunday, a double-day of obligation, and I sang the familiar Marian hymns ("constant was the love she gave Him / though He went forth from her side") and heard a sermon given by an aged priest serving the Franciscan missions in faraway Zambia. He said that he'd bet anyone $10 that every prayer they'd ever said has been answered. The bet will be paid off in Heaven, when he says to us, "see, I told you so!"

Heard on EWTN radio where another priest, author of a cookbook of sorts, said that "food is love," or at least is associated with love. We give food to those we love, we eat with those we love and it's no coincidence that Jesus comes to us in the form of food. Food is good, and God thus appropriates this imagery.

So how to explain those poor souls without food? I checked out St. Augustine's commentary on Matt 6:31:

Aug., Serm. in Mont., ii, 17: But when we read that the Apostle suffered hunger and thirst, let us not think that God's promises failed him; for these things are rather aids. That Physician to whom we have entirely entrusted ourselves, knows when He will give and when He will withhold, as He judges most for our advantage. So that should these things ever be lacking to us, (as God to exercise us often permits,) it will not weaken our fixed purpose, but rather confirm it when wavering.