Friday in the Second Week of Easter - 2012
(gerogetown.edu)
During this Easter Season our journey can be likened, at times, to some of the moments experienced by Jesus' disciples: Specifically in the breaking of bread.
Today is Friday, another week closer to Pentecost. In the parish where I live by nine o'clock this morning there will be a line at the rectory door, reminiscent of a sculptor's Great Depression line at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC. The rectory line will be the needy who come to ask for a grocery bag of food stuffs to help them through another week of their neediness.
(mej photo)
Like the scene in today's gospel, at our front door every Friday there is the multiplication of a can of veggies, a box of cereal, a container of grape jelly, a box of pancake mix and so forth. This is how the generous people of our parish and our Ladies of Charity group (LOC) multiply what is needed to help those seeking to means to feed themselves and their families. Surely the food donors and the LOC volunteers have the experience of know this same risen Jesus in the breaking of the bread with others whether it is in a can or a box or a plastic bag. These generous givers of food know they are like Jesus, providing food for others -- most of whom they know only by the name of "the needy in our parish."
For the LOC who greet and hand the bags of food stuffs, they personally know that they are serving as "other Christs." For them it is a moment when they know they are standing with Jesus who fed the hungry. Surely for them it is the privilege of knowing Jesus more intimately in the "breaking of the bread."
Perhaps you might ask yourself what it might be that you an do TODAY for those who are hungry, for those who may be homeless, for those who are abandoned. Jesus didn't hesitate to help those in need. Our LOC ladies help as well as they can (as long as there is food in "The Pantry").
