Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - March 28, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
HOLY THURSDAY
The brunch on the beach in John 21 is just one of many meals throughout the Gospels. Repeatedly Jesus is depicted as eating with different groups of people, from apostles to outcasts. It's not that he and the disciples were well-known gourmets; we rarely get more of the menu than at this brunch, fish and bread. Meals underline the reality of the resurrection, that we are not simply talking about the spirit of Jesus risen again in his desperate disciples. And, further, what is more natural than that the risen Lord and his disciples reunite around a meal? We regularly arrange to spend time with newly returned friends at a meal or over a cup of coffee or a drink.
Even more, the emphasis on meals in the Gospels stresses that we can find the risen Lord in the company of other human beings, in community, in relationships, in love, and friendship. The Eucharist itself discloses its meaning in our understanding of what meals do. Because we eat the one bread, St. Paul says, we are one body. The Lord's Supper exists to make us one with God and with each other.
Remembering, despite the token amount of food and drink, that it is a meal, keeps us aware that it is never simply a matter of me and God being joined together but me, everyone else, and God. Eating in the Gospels is never a matter of taking my food and going off by myself before a TV to eat it. Our sharing at the Lord's table tells us forcefully that God is encountered and served in others. Even while distancing ourselves physically from others we can find ways to serve and encourage them.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
