BON APPETIT

On a Friday night as Yeshua, head of the family, was preparing to bless the bread -- baruch atta Adonai Eluhenu --, he looked at the pile of inviting, freshly-made blond loaves and thought: Yes, that too has its place in the prayer I'm building. We harvest the wheat, we thresh it, we mill the grain, we bake the flour; but without the wheat, and the millet, and the rest, what should we do? It was you, Father, who brought forth lechem min ha'aretz, bread from the earth. Nothing is so basic: it is 'bread', but sometimes we use it to mean simply 'food'. It is your gift, not our right.  And sometimes You withhold it, or seem to; sometimes rains or drought spoil the  harvest, and we go hungry. You have not given, but You have allowed, great famines. It would be proper to ask for it: "Give us today today's bread, today's food." Only today's, he thought; it would be wrong to demand tomorrow's, too like hoarding, control, security. Abba, you have taught us to care and not to care, to live lightly, loving only you so that we may the better love all else. Give us, just for today, the lechem we need.

And, he reflected, as every thing here below is itself but also an image, how true this is of the lechem! It is the warm bread we eat and enjoy this Shabbat, but at the same time it is the unleavened bread that reminds us of our flight from Egypt; it is the food that God provided for Israel in the desert -- and remember, they were told to gather only each day for that day (except for Shabbat). And the food God gives is not only that of ha'aretz, is it? 

As he meditated, walking in the fields that day, the subject opened out and out in his mind. What feeds us? What feeds our bodies? What feeds our souls? `What has fed my mind, that now I can access so many treasures of thought? And the Word of God swam into his mind: all those riches of Torah, Tanakh, all the words of the prophets, all the overflowing beauty of the Psalms -- what a banquet!

The Psalms brought him to the Meshiach, that supreme gift from God that we are promised. Meshiach, who will repair the great Ill and heal Israel of its wounds. Will not Meshiach be like bread also, not today's but eternity's?

BON APPETIT

On a Friday night as Yeshua, head of the family, was preparing to bless the bread -- baruch atta Adonai Eluhenu --, he looked at the pile of inviting, freshly-made blond loaves and thought: Yes, that too has its place in the prayer I'm building. We harvest the wheat, we thresh it, we mill the grain, we bake the flour; but without the wheat, and the millet, and the rest, what should we do? It was you, Father, who brought forth lechem min ha'aretz, bread from the earth. Nothing is so basic: it is 'bread', but sometimes we use it to mean simply 'food'. It is your gift, not our right.  And sometimes You withhold it, or seem to; sometimes rains or drought spoil the  harvest, and we go hungry. You have not given, but You have allowed, great famines. It would be proper to ask for it: "Give us today today's bread, today's food." Only today's, he thought; it would be wrong to demand tomorrow's, too like  hoarding, control, security. Abba, you have taught us to care and not to care, to live lightly, loving only you so that we may the better love all else. Give us, just for today, the lechem we need.

And, he reflected, as every thing here below is itself but also an image, how true this is of the lechem! It is the warm bread we eat and enjoy this Shabbat, but at the same time it is the unleavened bread that reminds us of our flight from Egypt; it is the food that God provided for Israel in the desert -- and remember, they were told to gather only each day for that day (except for Shabbat). And the food God gives is not only that of ha'aretz, is it? 

As he meditated, walking in the fields that day, the subject opened out and out in his mind. What feeds us? What feeds our bodies? What feeds our souls? `What has fed my mind, that now I can access so many treasures of thought? And the Word of God swam into his mind: all those riches of Torah, Tanakh, all the words of the prophets, all the overflowing beauty of the Psalms -- what a banquet!

The Psalms brought him to the Meshiach, that supreme gift from God that we are promised. Meshiach, who will repair the great Ill and heal Israel of its wounds. Will not Meshiach be like bread also, not today's but eternity's?

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

At a chilly and quiet Mass on Saturday evening (in an exquisite old chapel built after an epidemic  centuries ago), I found myself very forcefully struck by the power of the Communion – what the President of the United States called ‘the little cracker’. And meditating on it afterwards, it occurred to me that that power comes from a threefold source (quite proper for a Trinitarian Godhead).

In the first place, Lord, here it is I who dare to confront Thee, to come into Thy presence. In the old days you came to Communion only if you were properly and officially shriven, and you were told that if you took Communion in an unworthy state, you would ‘eat and drink unto yourself damnation’. For reasons I’ll explain below, this is quite properly not insisted upon nowadays, but the coming into the Presence as, after all, a bit of a worm and no man, a somewhat wretched specimen all things considered, is pretty good cheek, or would be if Thou hadst not specifically invited us in our full decrepit creepitude. So here I am, before Thee, Lord, and Thou givest Thyself to me. I take Thee and I am redeemed – by the skin of my teeth. Completely overwhelming.

Secondly, here am I and – as Thou promisedst to those who have real faith, however wobbly and bumpy – Thou comest to take up Thy dwelling within me, even in the most basic physical dimension. I as Thy cottage in the South of France? I am fulfilled beyond imagining.

Thirdly – and here I come to a good reason not to insist too strongly on being in a ‘worthy’ state – what I am given is waybread, manna: a strange food unlike any other, that will strengthen me, uphold me, and see me through the next bit of wilderness on my winding wilful way to Thee. Astounding. I am fed. I can go out of here and go on.

And all of this at once, in ten seconds, in something the wind could blow away. I came out trembling. With the winter cold, but mainly in awe.