Will you make the head table?

Our first reading from the Book of Proverbs presents us with a picture of a banquet with a sumptuous table, all set with the best for the best! Jesus in the sixth chapter of John presents us with the best as He gives us His own Body and Blood.

As in the Book of Proverbs, people are free to accept or decline the invitation. If you accept, you gain Christ Himself; wisdom and love of others and Eternal Life.

Jesus states, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” At Mass, we gather at two tables. The table of the word of God, or the lectern, to be nourished with the Scriptures and an understanding and direction of how to love the Lord. At the Eucharistic table, we are united with the one body of Christ and thus are one in and with Jesus Christ. Coming to Mass should feed us in mind, body and soul from these two tables.

Being fed with the flesh and blood of Jesus means we are to remain in Him, now and forever. This is not an easy thought, to be taking flesh and blood. But perhaps it is to assist us in knowing that choices and decisions we make in the name of Jesus are not always easy. Jesus can guide us to the best of life here and hereafter, if we make the choice for Him.

In the Hebrew Old Testament, the concept of flesh and blood means the whole living being. This reality of Jesus, present in the Eucharist, is beyond our earthly comprehension. We are asked not to understand, but to live and experience life in and with Jesus.

Time and time again Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The challenge is to live and act each day with the Lord within us. When we make the choice to receive communion, we receive the whole living being of Christ within our being, and are challenged in a greater love that day and in the week ahead, for God and neighbor who are one with us.

Here is a great little story to help us know when we are acting in and with the Body of Christ.

A little girl arrived home late from playing with a neighbor. Her mother began to scold her, but then stopped. She asked the little girl, “Why are you so late?”

The girl replied, “I had to help a little boy who fell from his bike as I was walking home.”

The mother asked, “What did you do to help him?”

The little girl replied, “Oh, I sat down and helped him cry.”

The table of the Lord will not be full of people who did great deeds, but rather those who constantly lived the best that they could in all of life’s situations. There is no Head Table, for in Christ we are all one, and He abides in us and is one with us forever.