09/06/2026
THE BREATH OF AIR THAT GIVES LIFE
By Father John Shalhoub
6 September 2026
Sometimes the deepest questions of life come to us in the most ordinary places.
Today I was sitting in my car in a parking lot, waiting for my wife, when a simple thought entered my mind:
I am breathing.
Nothing extraordinary seemed to be happening. I was simply sitting there, breathing as I have done every moment of my life.
And yet I suddenly wondered:
What is this breath that keeps me alive?
Where does it come from?
What does it connect me to?
And what might it teach us about God, humanity, and the mystery of life?
THE MIRACLE WE HARDLY NOTICE
We breathe thousands of times every day, usually without thinking about it.
We cannot see the air entering us, yet without it our earthly life quickly comes to an end.
The air I breathe is not mine.
It moves through forests and cities, across mountains and oceans. It circulates through an atmosphere shared by humanity and by countless living creatures.
I inhale.
I exhale.
Another person does the same.
And suddenly something as ordinary as breathing becomes a reminder:
Life was never meant to exist completely alone.
Scripture expresses this mystery beautifully:
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
(Genesis 2:7)
The biblical image is magnificent.
Humanity is formed from the earth, but life comes through the breath of God.
Whether we contemplate this spiritually, philosophically, or scientifically, we encounter the same astonishing reality:
Life depends upon relationship.
We depend upon air.
We depend upon water.
We depend upon food.
We depend upon the earth.
We depend upon one another.
And ultimately, as people of faith, we believe that all existence depends upon God.
THE DROP OF WATER
Then I thought about water.
Consider a single glass of water.
The water before us may once have fallen as rain upon a mountain. It may have flowed through a river, entered the sea, risen again through evaporation, gathered in clouds, and returned once more to the earth.
The drop seems small.
Its journey is enormous.
The same water that sustains my body belongs to a great circulation of life extending across the planet.
Again, Scripture takes something ordinary and reveals something eternal through it.
Christ says:
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.”
(John 7:37)
Water becomes more than water.
It becomes an image of life, renewal, cleansing, grace, and our thirst for God.
THE LOAF OF BREAD
Then there is bread.
How simple a piece of bread appears.
But consider what stands behind it.
There is soil.
There is seed.
There is rain.
There is sunlight.
There is the farmer.
There is harvesting.
There is milling.
There is baking.
There are countless human hands and natural processes behind the piece of bread resting upon our table.
One loaf quietly contains a story of creation and human cooperation.
Perhaps this helps us understand why bread occupies such a profound place in Scripture.
When thousands were hungry, Christ took five loaves and two fish, blessed them, broke them, and fed the multitude.
And at the Mystical Supper, He took bread and said:
“This is My body.”
Then He took the cup:
“This is My blood.”
The ordinary becomes the bearer of the extraordinary.
Bread, something humanity has shared for thousands of years, becomes for Christians the great sign of communion—communion with Christ and communion with one another.
The Eucharist reminds us that Christianity is not merely an individual relationship between “me and God.”
It is communion.
We receive from one cup.
We share one table.
We become one body.
As Saint Paul writes:
“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.”
(1 Corinthians 10:17)
A UNIVERSE OF CONNECTION
Science also reveals extraordinary networks of relationship.
Within the human brain, billions of neurons communicate through vast networks. Within the body, organs, cells, blood vessels, nerves, hormones, and chemical signals continuously cooperate.
A single cell cannot declare itself independent of the body and remain healthy.
Its life depends upon relationship with the whole.
Look outward and we discover another network.
Plants interact with soil, sunlight, water, microorganisms, and atmosphere.
Oceans influence clouds.
Clouds bring rain.
Rain feeds rivers.
Rivers nourish fields.
Fields produce food.
Food sustains human beings.
Human beings breathe oxygen and return carbon dioxide to an atmosphere in which plants participate in another great exchange.
Creation is filled with relationships.
Perhaps one of humanity's greatest mistakes is imagining that independence means separation.
We are individuals, certainly.
We possess personality, freedom, responsibility, conscience, and identity.
But individuality does not mean isolation.
We are distinct, yet connected.
WHERE, THEN, IS GOD?
And here we arrive at the greater question.
If everything we observe depends upon something beyond itself, what holds the whole mystery of existence together?
Faith answers:
God.
Not as another object somewhere inside the universe.
Not as though God occupies a distant corner of space beyond the stars.
Christian theology speaks of God as the Creator and Sustainer of all existence.
Saint Paul expressed this beautifully:
“In Him we live and move and have our being.”
(Acts 17:28)
That statement becomes more astonishing the longer we contemplate it.
We do not merely occasionally encounter God.
Our entire existence rests within the mystery of God.
The air does not prove God.
The water does not prove God.
The bread does not scientifically demonstrate God.
But each can awaken us to something profound:
Life is received.
I did not create the first breath I took.
I did not command my heart to begin beating.
I did not design the laws of nature.
I did not create water.
I did not create the earth.
I did not create consciousness.
Before I could accomplish anything, life had already been given to me.
And perhaps gratitude begins when we finally recognize that.
WE ARE NOT GOD—BUT WE BEAR HIS IMAGE
Christian faith does not teach that human beings are pieces of God or that God is merely the sum of everything in the universe.
It teaches something even more beautiful:
We are creatures of God who bear the image of God.
There is a difference.
The mirror is not the sun, but it can reflect its light.
Likewise, humanity is not God, yet we are capable of reflecting divine qualities:
love,
mercy,
creativity,
truth,
compassion,
justice,
forgiveness,
and peace.
This gives extraordinary meaning to the words:
“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”
(Genesis 1:26)
Perhaps the question is therefore not merely:
Where is God?
Perhaps we should also ask:
How much of God's image can others see reflected through me?
IF WE ARE CONNECTED, HOW SHOULD WE LIVE?
Here the reflection becomes practical.
If humanity truly belongs to one interconnected family, then what harms one part of the human family eventually affects the whole.
Hatred spreads.
But so does kindness.
Violence spreads.
But so does peace.
Fear can travel from person to person.
But courage can do the same.
One compassionate action may influence another person, who influences another, whose kindness reaches someone we will never meet.
We may never know how far the ripple travels.
Christ therefore gives us a command that suddenly seems not only religious but profoundly consistent with the interconnected nature of life:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Why?
Perhaps because, at the deepest human level, my neighbor's welfare and my own cannot finally be separated.
THE NEXT BREATH
And so, I return to where this reflection began.
Sitting quietly in a parking lot.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Nothing spectacular happening.
And yet the entire mystery of existence was present.
Air entering my lungs.
Blood carrying oxygen.
A heart beating without my instruction.
A brain producing consciousness.
Water circulating within my body.
Food sustaining my cells.
A planet beneath me.
An atmosphere surrounding me.
A universe extending beyond anything I can comprehend.
And behind all these mysteries, the question that humanity has asked from the beginning:
Who are we?
Why are we here?
And what gives life its meaning?
Science can teach us wonderfully about how many processes of life operate.
Philosophy can help us ask why existence matters.
Faith points us toward the ultimate Source and meaning of existence.
We should not be afraid to allow these questions to speak to one another.
For the more we learn, the greater the mystery sometimes becomes.
Perhaps wisdom begins when we realize that the ordinary is not ordinary at all.
A breath.
A drop of water.
A piece of bread.
A heartbeat.
A human being beside us.
Each can become a doorway into wonder.
So before rushing into the next hour of life, stop for only a moment.
Take one breath.
And remember:
You did not manufacture that breath.
You received it.
Receive the next one with gratitude.
Then use the life it gives you to bring life to somebody else.
For we are many,
yet we share one earth.
We are individuals,
yet we belong to one human family.
We breathe the same air,
drink from the waters of the same earth,
and receive bread from the same creation.
And beyond everything we can see or understand stands the eternal mystery of the One
in whom we live,
and move,
and have our being.
Thanks be to God for the breath of life.
