“Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told (Jesus) of her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she served them” (Mark 1:29)
How easy it is for us modern Americans with our breakfasts on the run, power lunches, and TV dinners to miss the import of the meals where our beloved Lord and God Jesus Christ eats with the people He loves: In the home of His friend Lazarus, in the Upper Room, even by invitation at the house of the hostile Simon the Leper, and here in the house of Simon Peter. It displays an intimacy that we may miss, the significance of breaking bread together. The evening meal is for family and those privileged to be invited among them.
Among the jam-packed events that open the gospel of Mark, we find the poignant tale above, the supper in Peter’s home and the healing of his mother-in-law. She the hostess of the house rises from her sick bed and takes charge of the evening meal. Not Peter’s wife, but she herself bustles about her self-appointed duty, preparing and serving the food for her guests. We can imagine the smiles and shoulder shrugs among all who were present. This is not just any woman’s task. To borrow a cliché from sports: “Not in her house.”
All people from the Oriental nations understand that: Jews and Arabs, Copts and Muslims, comprehend without explanation the bond among those who break bread together. Even those who are not Italians or Greeks, watching them around the table at least in a motion picture or on the television screen, must be aware of what it means for them to eat and drink around the meal table. Isn’t that what the paradigm of peace, Pilgrims and Native Americans, are displaying on the prototypical Thanksgiving Day?
Put that into perspective and you may just understand the flavor of circumstances where Judas Iscariot was pointed out as the betrayer of Him whom he had followed for several years right at the intimate moment of the Supper that epitomized all Eucharist meals for Christians through the centuries. Leonardo DaVinci understood the irony. It is at that very moment that he chose to capture the scandal of betrayal in his famous painting of the Last Supper. Of course the last supper for our Master and Lord, but for Judas as well.
When the holiday season arrives, from Thanksgiving through New Year and on to the Holy Theophany, traditional families gather intimately at dinner time. I relive mentally and emotionally the earliest years of my life, eating at my grandparents’ home. Grandmother had nine children, and most of them would appear for the Christmas Eve meal, the “Holy Supper.” It was always strictly Lenten—no dairy products and of course no meat dishes. One especially I recall was when three of her sons were all in the US Army, and thankfully unknown to us then, for the last time. I remember my eldest uncle tutored by Grandpa reading what seemed endless passages from Bible and Church prayers while I, five years of age, stared at the food and prayed for an “Amen!” to finish his droning.
I remember a time not long past when my brother and I were at the family table. We were not there at that time for a meal. We would take the table away with all the other possessions from the only home we had ever shared together, our birthplace. I had been praying at the time for both our mother and father. We would be putting our homestead up for sale. I tried not to show that I was in tears, but I started to choke. John, like our father, was not one to express his feelings verbally; nevertheless, as I tried to compose myself, he said: “I always thought that whatever happens to me—if I should be wounded in battle, lose a job, find there were no place for me to go, that I could always find my way home.” Then he paused for a pregnant moment and continued, “But I realized that it wasn’t really home; it was Mom.”