Thursday, March 28, 2013

Dearest God,

Thank you for the invitation to your table.  Tonight as I stood around your holy table with the names of your disciples, listening to the your words, and eating and drinking spiritual refreshment, I was keenly aware of your warm welcome.  I realized your faithfulness in both your invitation and your welcome throughout the years.  Although I may not have been cheerful, hospitable, or clean, you wanted me there.  I am so very grateful.

That started me thinking of the many tables where I have found spiritual companionship.  My grandmother's table always had a place for you.  When I ate her food, I was also eating yours.  Our family table was always open to one more because love lived at our table.  My aunts' tables offered joy and love too.  The Carmelite table was a really big table because anyone who was hungry or thirsty was welcome.  I found so much spiritual food there.  Although I am not formally a Catholic, I have enjoyed the fellowship at many a monastic table.  Then there were the tables of churches, retreat centers, and spiritual sites.  Oh my how much I quenched my spiritual thirst there.

This evening I realized once again how open your table is to me and to everyone.  You invite us again and again.  We don't eat there because we don't go there.  But when we do, we always find you waiting, hungry to feed us, your children.  How blessed we are, how very blessed!

Please forgive me
for every time
I turned away
seeking food elsewhere.
Thank you
for your
sweet mercy
that never failed
to say yes
at the table.
Make my table
a welcoming center too.
May you always
have a place
at my table,
Lord;
please live in
my home,
my heart,
and my soul,
I pray.

Love, Andrea