I'm jumping ahead to tomorrow's Gospel reading for The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (that is indeed a mouthful;)
A few posts ago I was pondering how much communicating I do with my body, my gestures, my breathing, and my tone…the non-wordy stuff. So when I read Mark's account of the last supper I found myself imagining…even inhabiting the scene.
A carefully planned meal. The right space and arrangement of furniture. The plates, the cups, the food and drink. All very ordinary but well attended to. And then the words "This is my body." I don't see Jesus staring into the cup or at the bread, not with all that good company at table. That would be way outside of ordinary. He would be gesturing with his hands, making THIS a very big word, his arms outstretched and sweeping to include it all. THIS. "All of you who have been following me around these past years." THIS. "This meal and our sharing and all that came before." THIS. "Our story. Our identity." THIS is a very big word.
I can't help but think that we have narrowed it as we stare at the bread, as the cups are too precious for ordinary folk to handle, as we bleed the meal of everything meal-like. Is God afraid that the Eucharist will not be holy or sacred enough? I doubt it. My guess is that it is quite the opposite. We just have such a hard time keeping it ordinary as if that might scandalize the God who chose to come to us in a dirty feeding trough, to a no-name family, in a backwater Palestinian village.
Taught and formed at the Eucharistic table, may I bring THIS to the sharing that happens in the ordinariness of my life. THIS, a life open, broken, precious and ordinary.
No comments:
Post a Comment