Greetings,
In his 1982 book Sir, We Would See Jesus, Walter J. Burghardt writes:
“The day after Thanksgiving the New York Times told of a 33-year-old local cab driver whose shoulder-length hair was tied in a ponytail. (Don’t get distracted by the ponytail!) About five years ago, this cabby “prayed to God for guidance on how to help the forgotten people of the streets who exist in life’s shadows.” As he recalls it, God replied: “Make eight pounds of spaghetti, throw it in a pot, and give it out on 103rd Street and Broadway with no conditions, and people will come.” He did, they came, and now he goes from door to door giving people food to eat.
“I am not asking you to stuff the Big Apple with spaghetti. But a New York cabby can bring light into your Advent night. He prayed to a God who was there; he listened; he gave the simple gift God asked of him; he gave “with no conditions”; and people responded. Here is your Advent: Make the Christ who has come a reality, a living light, in your life and in some other life. Give of yourself¼to one dark soul¼with no conditions.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta said:
“In each of our lives Jesus comes as the bread of life—to be eaten, to be consumed by us. This is how he loves us. Then Jesus comes in our human life as the hungry one, the other, hoping to be fed with the bread of our life, our hearts loving, our hands serving. In loving and serving, we prove that we have been created in the likeness of God, for God is love and when we love we are like God. This is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’”
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We might add, just to make it very clear, that as we consume the bread of life, we, with Jesus in us, become the Body of Christ, the Bread of Christ for others. As the Body of Christ we “in union with Christ’s offering for us” offer ourselves “as a holy and living sacrifice” for others. We offer ourselves as bread to be consumed by all who are hungry, all who are in need.
Advent is about getting ready for Christ and all that Christ means. Advent is about getting ready to be “eaten alive” by a world in great need. This Advent and Christmas season, in the midst of all your preparation for and participation in parties, dinners, visits with family and friends, and more shopping and returns and re-shopping, set aside some evenings with family and/or friends to take some bag meals to homeless on the streets. Go to a nursing home and visit with some people who have no one to visit them. Call any of the places that feed the homeless and ask if they need volunteers during the week, or two, after Christmas. Visit your elderly neighbor, take some cookies (along with something sugar free, like Murray cookies) and during your visit tell them that you will shovel their walks this winter, or do any other chore they may need done. The visit is as important as the chore. Thus, you will be the Bread of Christ for others.
Yours & His,
DED
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