I was raised in Kansas, but I attended a seminary university in remote Ohio. One weekend, a schoolmate who lived close by invited me to go to his domestic. Upon arrival that Friday evening, he asked what time I would like to consume. I said, “Whatever time your mom is serving supper.”
He stated, “My mother doesn’t cook dinner.”I requested, “Your mom doesn’t cook dinner on Friday evenings?”
“No,” he said. “My mother doesn’t cook at all.” He would possibly as nicely have said, “My mother is an area alien.” The notion changed into one that I had never considered. No judgment. I no longer inquired into why neither she nor all people else cooked in the domestic. Startling as it became, it became simply some other “You’re not in Kansas anymore” moment.
Though we had been allowed soup and sandwiches in front of the TV while Lassie turned on, my family ate its different 20 foods every week on the table. Making that manifest was a circle of relatives affair of meals, training, and easy-up. My father became a grocer who liked to nap after lunch before returning to work. He could pick the ketchup or mustard at the end of each lunch, take it to the fridge, and preserve it by transferring it. In change, mom slept in while dad made us a full breakfast each morning.
Uninterrupted family food has gone the way of Lassie, but we must remember what we’ve lost, why the Gospel sees it as essential, and find a way to compensate. Abraham and Sarah entertained angels because their way of life demanded that strangers be acquired as guests. It is over a meal that Abraham became told that Sarah, despite her age, might give him a son.
On behalf of the arena’s many Marthas, allow us to admit that Mary might no longer sit at the Lord’s feet if he had no longer come for dinner, which her sister had made viable. The point is that meals are meant to attract us far away from our activities, attract us together, and give us time to soak up each other as we take nourishment. Meals are when we communicate and, even more importantly, listen to what is taking place inside others’ lives. At the desk, even those who in no way stop speakme should deliver the rest of us a hazard to talk unless they intend to starve.
The Mass is a meal. Though bodily, we consume little or no; it attracts us far from our sports, draws us together, and gives us time to absorb each other as we receive the Lord’s nourishment. That is why lacking Mass has usually been considered a grave sin. What does it say, in a circle of relatives, when a person does not want to join the others for supper?
St. Paul speaks of “the mystery hidden from ages and generations past. But now it has been manifested to his holy ones” (Col 1:26). Spiritual insights, small graces, and daily consolations are items from God. If our days aren’t rife with those non-public revelations, we must invite why. Maybe we have drifted far away from a dwelling relationship with God. Or perhaps we genuinely want to sluggish down.
How do we decelerate? Seek out silence. Disconnect from media, at least for some moments every day. Take a walk. Sit outside for some time. Visit an empty church. Watch your baby sleep. Follow the direction of a chicken until it eludes your sight.
God is a sun that in no way stops shining. Sin can cloud our awareness of God; however, so can haste. The saints insist that the time we give God is never wasted. That, having observed refreshment in God, the time has a manner of returning to us. The time allotted to God gives us power for the whole thing else.
Fast meals make the handiest one promise. That it is rapid. Christ guarantees to feed us with food as a way to remain. But there is a cost. We need to be at his desk. And, when we aren’t, we need to gradually down.
