I love food. I have not outgrown my childhood tendency to fill my plate with more food than I can eat. My mother, God rest her soul, used to tell me that my eyes were bigger than my stomach.
In the life of the Church, there is often food. Funeral luncheons, wedding receptions, award dinners and fundraising banquets. There is an old adage in parishes –– if you want people to attend, serve food. Common to many parishes, St. Gerard Majella in Brooklyn Park, where I am privileged to serve as pastor, has a parish festival and hospitality Sundays with coffee and donuts (also juice and little oranges for the health-conscious).
The parish also has “Café Majella” which is a place for people to gather in the afternoon for conversation, card and board games, and an assortment of baked goods and other treats. On Thanksgiving Day, after a morning Mass, the parish hosts a Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, I was surprised when over 90 people attended. Some found it a respite from cooking. Some had family out of town and were not traveling that year. Others had no family.
In the United Kingdom, where governmental departments are called ministries, there is an official with the title, “Minister of Loneliness.” Though it sounds a bit mushy for a government office, it is a major social issue. In the United States, the latest statistics estimate that one in four Americans suffer from isolation.
Even though it is called “The Great Minnesota Get-Together,” most people I know do not go to the Minnesota State Fair to meet people and have meaningful conversations. As for the life of faith, I think the only faith statement I have ever made at the state fair is when I make the sign of the cross before gorging on an ear of corn, dripping with butter.
Nonetheless, we have the opportunity in parishes to gather at table for a purpose that goes beyond catering to gluttony. The table can be a meeting place where people of faith, as the first order of business, seek to grow in a deeper relationship with each other as sisters and brothers in Christ. The agenda is secondary. The food is but a physical feeding for a people who have a far greater spiritual hunger.
At St. Gerard, we have “Leadership at Table.” Each month, commission members, pastoral and finance council members gather at different tables to eat a wonderful dinner while discussing a prioritized topic that I have presented for advice on temporal matters or for collaboration on pastoral activities. After one hour, the commission members go home and the Pastoral Council then meets to share the table discussions. I am always impressed with the depth of these conversations.
Pope Francis has invited us to “spiritual accompaniment.” In the Holy Father’s Jan. 4, 2023, general audience, he said:
“This accompaniment can be fruitful if, on both sides, one has experienced filiality and spiritual kinship. We discover we are children of God at the moment that we discover we are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father. This is why it is essential to be part of a journeying community. We are not alone, we belong to a people, a nation, a city that is on the move, a Church, a parish, this group … a community on the move.”
In deepening our relationship with Jesus Christ, we are to deepen our relationship with each other. The root of accompaniment is companion. Companion –– com panis –– means “with bread.” If our faith party is just me and Jesus, then the Holy Spirit was not invited. The Holy Spirit elevates us above and beyond what divides us to unite us as one in Christ. This same Spirit compels us to move from the table of accompaniment to the celebration of the Eucharist where we are given a glimpse of the communion of saints seated at the table of the heavenly banquet that is yet to come.
From the pulpit to the altar and then to the people, the person and real presence of Jesus Christ gives to us his very self. At each Mass, food and faith are two halves of the same coin. At the table of all tables, the altar of sacrifice, from which comes the greatest feast of them all, we do want our eyes to be bigger than our stomachs.
