CYCLE B 20TH
1. Eating…is a most fundamental necessity for humans. Physically, we grow up at the table. Because of it’s importance, I can remember hearing and then using the encouraging table phrases of:
-“Come and Eat” or “Come and Get it.”
– Eat…Eat, Your nothing but skin and bones.
-You eat like a bird. Or…’Try this…you’ll like it’.
-How about the hard line dictates. ‘ Your not leaving the table until you eat your dinner.’
-Other children are starving. Don’t waste your food.
-or the Wisdom speeches. as Fr. Merlin said last week, ‘You are what you eat.’
-The rewards: You wanna grow up big and strong don’t you?
At the Family Table we grow well and maintain our health because we consume good food. The wise forgo the folly of ‘JUNK FOOD’.
2. From a social standpoint, time at the TABLE is the best place for family meal. We grew physically sure, but we grow socially, emotionally and spiritually. We hear the news, share the events of the day. And we come to know our family history. We celebrate accomplishment and deal with struggles. We discuss right and wrong. We laugh, sing and cry. We are taught to share, to Pray, to Fast and abstain. We learn to serve and care about other people. And oh the importance of HOLIDAY meals with their meaning and ritual. Especially with extended family or special friends.
3. Don’t you agree Meal time is a very important? For Family or friends there is no school like, no place to gather like the TABLE. To eat and drink and grow in wisdom and love for one another.
4. One of the best ways to understand the Sacraments, is to first show the reality of a similar action that we can easily understand. And then apply that same meaning to the spiritual meaning of the Sacrament.
YES…The FAMILY MEAL is a big help, a important action to reveal the meaning of THE LORD’S SUPPER. The Eucharist.
The Church reminds us that God personally CALLS, INVITES and BEGS us to TABLE fellowship. ‘Come and Eat’ …. In proverbs the ‘Simple’ are invited to the ‘House’ of wisdom to receive the mixture of wine and food that provides understanding. ‘Come and Eat’…
-At the Blessed Sacrament Family Table for this SPECIAL meal.
-To the Table where Gods Word is heard and shared.
-To the Table for the Lord’s Supper so we can FEAST on his Flesh and Blood.
Don’t you see that what happens at our earthly TABLES shadows this Heavenly Liturgy . At both: We talk, listen, sing, dance, cry, share stories and histories. We pray, care and serve. We see ourselves and others grow spiritually.
5. And just as some meals at the Earthly Table are more important than others, we must realize that being at table together on Sundays has the most profound meaning of any meal we will ever partake in.
-We are giving thanks to God for Jesus’ selfless act in dying on the cross. The act that brings about our salvation.
-And when we share in His meal in remembrance of that event,
-He becomes the meal. The Lamb of sacrifice. The bread for nourishment and the wine becomes His Blood. A sign of Life.
AND WE COMSUME HIM.
-and as we consume Him, he becomes apart of us. And we then become a part of Him and can grow to be like him.
7. The last line in John’s Gospel last week, “I Am the living bread That came down from heaven and whoever eats this bread will Live forever….”, did you notice, is our first line today? The church wants that sentence to IMPACT and DEEPEN our understanding of THIS MEAL AT THIS TABLE. ‘We are what we eat.’ ‘Try it, you’ll love it.’
To partake in the meal that celebrates total love is unlike any other meal we have. This one offers us life forever. The others, while we eat and drink, they still leave us on a path to physical death.
-Do you want to have LIFE with in you now?
-Do you want to live ETERNALLY happy?
-Do you want to be RAUSED body and soul on the last day? COME AND EAT TRUE FOOD OF HEAVEN!
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