Table Talk

 

I recently went to New Orleans to visit my four year old goddaughter.   We spent a lot of time at the table making arts and crafts.   We created and we related.  Our creations became an expression of the relationship that was also being formed at that table.   Tables are all about relationships.   I think of the table at my Grandmother’s house where she would tell me stories of “The Old Country,”  the lunch table at my high school where my friends and I would nurture our relationships as we noshed on lunch and lunchtime gossip, the Ping-Pong table in my basement where my brother and I spent many a night challenging each other’s game, the picnic tables at the state park that became the centerpiece of national holidays for my family, the tables in the workplace where my colleagues and I have gathered to make decisions that would influence not only our relationships but the relationships of the wider community.

The Church knows well the connection between table and relationship.  Both the altar and the ambo are considered tables.   At the ambo, we hear about the relationship between God and God’s people.  At the altar, our relationship with Jesus and one another are re-created in the Eucharist.  Realizing the intimate link between these two furnishings, the Church directs architects to design the altar and ambo so that they bear a “harmonious and close relationship” to one another.  For, from the ambo, where the covenant is proclaimed, the Church grows in wisdom and from the altar, where the covenant is renewed, the Church grows in holiness.  (Lectionary for Mass:  Introduction)

Last week, we blessed a new altar and ambo in our church.  Let us pray that these tables in all our churches will be a source of our spiritual nourishment.

O Lord, bless all the tables in our lives.  May they nourish and sustain all our relationships.  AMEN.