Taking the Time to Make a Difference

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I just can’t imagine the 12 apostles getting into a drive-up line for Big Macs and fries. That’s the most outrageous image I can come up with, as I reflect on the comparisons we have made historically between the Hoy Communion and the common table. Philosophers used to argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. I wonder how many apostles could fit into an SUV. And would they argue over who should be first in line at the drive-up? How would we write the feeding of the multitude today? Would a central character be a child with two left-over Chicken McNuggets? And the neighbor that keeps on knocking on my door — doesn’t he know that there’s a fast food store open late? Food – and the sharing of it – is such an important part of our Sacred Scriptures. But the experience of food, and the sharing of it, is no longer much of a common experience in daily life.

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A recent telephone conversation started my thinking on this topic. Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger writes a weekly column for this newspaper, and Pilar Tirado regularly translates it from English into Spanish, so we can present the two versions side by side. Bishop Gettelfinger, born and raised on a farm, wrote about the family meals and reflected on the Eucharistic meal. He referred to sharing breakfast and supper at the family table, and how the midday dinner was usually the main meal of the day when it was eaten at home. At some times during the year, though – at harvest time, in particular – the midday meal was eaten in the field so work could continue without much of a delay. As she translated the column, Pilar had to call to ask about the names of the meals. Custom, for many or most in the Latino community, is that the midday meal is lunch and the evening meal is dinner. Custom, for many or most in the North American midwest, is that the midday meal is dinner. Or maybe, that the main meal of the day is dinner, no matter if it is at midday or at the end fo the workday. After my phone conversation with Pilar, I asked staff members and co-workers what they called the meals of the day. Some said, breakfast, dinner and supper. Others said breakfast, lunch and supper. In most of these subsequent conversations, we talked about “what we used to call the meals,” or “what we called them when we were growing up.” What do you call the meals you share with others?

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What’s the point of this reflection? That the sharing of food at a common table has been more than the satisfaction of hunger, more than a practical means of filling stomachs. It’s not only the common meal that is in danger, even our festive meals are threatened, I fear. Times have changed. So have the foods we consume and how they are prepared. But to me, the need remains for a communion with those we love, a time for nourishment of the body and the soul, a time to digest the day’s events, to chew on problems, to raise a toast to an individual’s success.

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At a recent group effort at Seton Harvest, our community suported agriculure project, a group of individuals and families gathered to dig up two long rows of sweet potatoes. One of the children looked in wonder at what was found under the earth, and asked, “Is that a real potato?” The answer to that question was worth the season’s work. Food is a gift from God, planted and harvested by the work of human hands, to be shared in the pleasure of family and friends, to be a sign among us of God’s presence -- the God who intervenes in human time to make the ultimate difference for all of us.

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