Oops – my bad! Here’s the rest.
“I’m sitting at my dining room table, waiting for a batch of brownies to come out of the oven. The handsome, round oak table on which they will cool is the hub of our family life. From its sturdy center, soulful spokes of food, drink, conversation, conviviality, tradition and memory sprout, finding outward expression in our daily round.”
“Much more than eating takes place here. Newspapers are read, mail is sorted, conversations are started, homework is completed, bills are paid, cakes are iced, income tax is computed, flowers are arranged, games are played, confidences are shared, family and friends are gathered.”
I recall my studies in Theology and a course on the Sacrament of Eucharist. How the earliest celebrations were in homes. How my professor stressed the importance of the table/altar and its many purposes, symbolizing the many ways we participate and experience the ‘Bread of Life.’ For me, Eucharist is life. In Thomas Keating’s book, “Open Mind, Open Heart”, under Guidelines for Christian Life, Growth and Transformation, he describes it this way.
“Eucharist is the celebration of life: the coming together of all the material elements of the cosmos, their emergence to consciousness in human persons and the transformation of human consciousness into Divine consciousness. It is the manifestation of the Divine in and through the Christian community. We receive the Eucharist in order to become the Eucharist.”
For me, Eucharist is the dynamic expression of God’s love for all humanity, all creation, in a simple act of giving and receiving. But it springs from an act of sacrifice so profound, so monumental, at times I am moved to grateful, joyful tears and overwhelmed with awe and reverence at its implications and revelations.
I am moved to silence. I am moved to song. And then moved to service, in the ways I am called.
