FROM SEEING TO RECOGNIZING
My friend swears his mother’s style of cooking remains to be an endearing element that binds him to her. He knows her cooking and can tell the difference from that of others. I also could tell the difference between my grandmother’s puto (rice cake) and that bought from vendors.
Food — the way it is prepared, how it is offered and shared, and who prepares it — has a lot to do with one’s feelings of well-being, relatedness, and at-homeness. There is more to food than just seeing it with your eyes. Food always has to do with warm feelings — of being loved, being cared for, and being the object and recipient of someone’s act of sacrificing love.
My mother’s nilaga or adobo were never culinary masterpieces. I didn’t see anything special in them. But I miss them every time I went back to the seminary from home visit. For I recognized in them a mother’s care and love. I saw more than the bland, ordinary fare that wouldn’t merit a second look from any gourmet.
The Eucharist, understood as the Lord giving of Himself as food to His beloved disciples, is partly what today’s Gospel passage is all about. He offered the two disciples bread and wine. But He did so in a manner that only people whose hearts were burning with love could recognize. The two disciples saw nothing more than what ordinary diners would have seen. But there was more than just food being offered. There was more than just a fleeting encounter involved between the three.
There was love — the fruit of a supreme sacrifice. And it spelled the difference between merely seeing and recognizing. “It is the Lord!”Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB
REFLECTION QUESTION: How well do you recognize the love of the Lord for you?
Thank You, Lord, for the gift of the Eucharist. Help me to hunger for It all the days of my life.
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