Metropolitan Diary
Shopping at corner fruit stand.
Noticed a homeless woman looking over the fruits and
vegetables.
Went up to her – would you like to choose something?
Oh – I would like a bunch of those green grapes
Great vendor picked
them out and put in a bag and gave to homeless woman
She looked in the bag then at the woman who paid for them.
“You know – this is a lot of grapes. Won’t you share them
with me?”
So they stood on the sidewalk eating grapes with a woman
whose generosity surpassed her own.
Such generosity
Generosity of the one who fed 5,000 – gives himself to us forever in the
Eucharist..
Taught as young boy – stop and visit our parish church to
pray before Blessed Sacrament Tolkien –
fall in love, by grace of God have not fallen out.
Learned many other ways the Church shows this love
-
Mass every day
-
Adoration
-
Bring to the sick
-
Viaticum for the final journey.
We do our part when -
- Go to confession if in mortal sin
- Keeping the fast
- Being on time
- Proper clothing
- Reverence – genuflect when coming and going
- Receiving with both hands and with clean hands.
Another aspect equally important
Father John Donahue
Jesuit
Breakfast one day with a Muslim student in Lebanon
Asks about Catholic teaching on the Eucharist
Tried to talk about Real Presence – did not seem to be the
answer.
“What is your most basic problem with the Eucharist?”
“If Catholics really believed they received the Body and
Blood of Christ together – would they treat each other the way they do?”
So we go back to the lesson of the grapes
A challenge for all who receive the Eucharist!
