If I ever talk of daily food as a sacrament — a visible sign of grace — there are those who raise their eyebrows in disbelief: parents of young children as they wipe up the pureed banana slops of the kitchen floor; or the one who struggles with an eating disorder and for whom food is…
Category: Eucharist
Link on bread and sacrament
Hans Georg-Link, ‘The Bread of Life: Comments on a Fundamental Biblical Experience,’ in Ecumenical Review 34 (1982), 249-257.
Eucharist: Slow Food
“When we come to the Table in Communion we are called to take time to be together. The Eucharist ought not to have an express lane. It takes time: time to serve the elements of The Meal, time to stand in line, time to think and pray, time to prepare to eat together, and time to…
Poetry at the table #5
My friend Stefanie passed on these words in response to others from Garrison Keilor posted here. Though quoted by David Adam in one of his many books of Celtic prayers, I’m unsure of where they come from originally. If you know, I would be glad to know too. Be gentle, when you touch bread, Let…
Poetry at the table #4
After reviewing Keeping the Feast yesterday, some words of poetry from the author communion we pass the silver plate of broken bread with less confidence than we pass the peace easier perhaps to hug than to admit to our hunger we take and eat without a word and wait for the wine’s weaker friend shot glasses…
‘Keeping the Feast’ by Milton Brasher-Cunningham
‘We make bread so that it shall be possible for mankind to have more than bread.’ So said the ecologist John Stewart Collis back in the 1970s. He’s right. Food is never just about the food. In fact, when we write about food as an end in itself, it’s likely we’ve misunderstood our subject. That…
Poetry at the table #3
Last week I attended Mass at St Francis here in the city. It was not a planned thing. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood. It’s a familiar place. In fact, I used to take my students there each year. In an introduction to spirituality, we visited several churches of various brands, St Francis included. I…
De Botton on the Table
The popular English philosopher Alain de Botton has gotten a mountain of press over his book Religion for Atheists, and not all of it glowing. I’ve commented on it more generally here. But what he says about the table is worth a separate mention. In one of his early chapters, de Botton argues that embracing the stranger…
Poetry at the table #2
At Collins Street the first Sunday of the month is communion Sunday, the day we break bread together and swallow shots of unfermented grape juice from the tiniest glasses. The older I get, the more this odd and simple ritual means to me. There is something about the feel of the bread in my hands, the sacred…
More on communion
After yesterday’s post, and just to confirm for my good Anglican friend Geoff my definite ‘anglo-catholic’ tendencies … …the breaking of bread at holy communion can break you right open. It’s like the gates to your heart have opened and everything you have ever loved comes tumbling out to be missed and praised and mourned and…
Poetry at the table #1
On Sunday night at Collins Street we sat around the table set with bread and wine, the ‘elements’ of our faith, and reflected on the incredulity of bread as a sign of God. Bread: it’s a staple of the mundane and the necessary; an international language of sustenance and gathering; a sign of commonality yet a reminder…
Sara Miles’ ‘Take this Bread’
No doubt, one of the best reads for me in the past two years was Sara Miles’ Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion. I can’t claim it a life changer, but as a memoir of conversion centered at the table of God, it’s a book that’s affirmed for me so much about faith, eucharist and church,…
EATING HEAVEN 