The Hebrew word for Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’ (‘Beth’ - house / ‘lehem’ - of bread). I find it fascinating that our Christmas story tells us that Jesus is born in ‘the house of bread’. This is a very positive image of our world, with Bethlehem being the ‘symbolic village’ for our ‘global village’. Indeed our world is a ‘house of bread’. The bread of family life, the bread of education, the bread of work and provision, the bread of leisure and rest, the bread of faith communities, the bread of nature and creation, the bread of God living among us. This is a glimpse of the banquet of breads that we are privileged and challenged to partake of on our journey through life.
Christmas time is one of the deeply sacred moments in our year when we are invited to recognize the complexity of our individual and communal quarrels, conflicts, prejudices, past hurts, and the temptation to hoard more than our share of the world’s bread. Once again we can ask for a glimmer of hope and a bit of movement towards freeing us in joining our family tables, friendship tables, the global community and our natural environment with a deeper awareness of our interdependence and a fuller appreciation that the bread we personally bring is needed, unique, delightful and holy.
I have often mentioned over the years that bread can only become bread through a process where thousands and millions of individual grains are milled into flour and kneaded together. In the great mystery of one loaf of bread is the truth that each grain of wheat that makes up the loaf is essential. This holds for us the following truth that Jesus taught us in his actions and words of who we each are as human beings. When we join our lives with Christ to the lives of others in loving ways and pool our knowledge, imaginations, bodies, minds and spirits for the common good, God makes us into loaves of life giving bread.
Jesus from his birth till his death included the gifts of everyone from the shepherds, who were often viewed as unclean and unworthy, to the thieves on the cross beside him whom he welcomed into paradise.
As we reach out this Christmas season to those who have greater economic challenges than ourselves and are depending on our generosity and peacemaking, may our outreach not just be ‘out- reach’. May it also be an experience of ‘receiving-in’. What do we need to receive from the amazing bag of gifts of those we reach out to? After all, our loaf is only true bread when the many grains are included.
Thank you to all of you for all you do to make St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish such a life giving ‘loaf of bread’ for so many. May you be blessed deeply by the Christmas season by, Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, who lives among us EVERYWHERE!
Merry Christmas!!
Office:
1500 Hanwell Road
Fredericton, NB, E3C 1N3
Phone: (506) 444 6021
Email:
office@stkateri.ca