We continue in the synodal context and an image that brings me to reflect this time is the figure of the table, a table that evokes unity, family, food, Eucharist and many other things that we can reflect on.
At the table we are all invited; in this synodal moment we were all invited and we continue to be invited to sit at the table so that we too can feel listened to and nourished by the Church.
We are all guests at the table.
When reflecting on the figure of the table, we can ask ourselves if we really all sit at the same table to nourish ourselves with the Word and the Body and Blood of Christ.
Do we all enter, or do we leave some out because they do not meet the requirements that we ourselves have indicated?
All of us were born into a family and we know that the table is the sign of unity, because it is there that we all sit down to eat or to celebrate the feast of a family member, and everyone has space and opportunity to sit down, and if someone from outside the family comes, we make a place for him or her to share with us.
Will it be the same at the Eucharistic table in our ecclesial community?
Go and invite everyone to the banquet (Mt 22:9).
For if we go to the Holy Scriptures, there we are taught that the Lord invites us to a banquet to seat us all at his table, since the table of the Lord is open to all: The servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, bad and good.
We are all invited to the table of the Lord, and not because of our moral condition; all, good and bad.
God is no respecter of persons.
The Lord speaks of a wedding feast.
A wedding banquet is an encounter and love; moreover, the motto that Pope Francis has chosen for the month of the missions is on the theme of the banquet: Go and invite everyone to the banquet (Mt 22:9).
The Lord says to all, he does not say yes to some and no to others; he does not set conditions for the invitation: all, excluding no one. Thus, the wedding feast that God has prepared for the Son remains open to all and forever, because his love for each one of us is great and unconditional.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not die, but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16).
(Pope Francis on World Mission Day 2024).
Access to the table of the Lord is free and for all; it is a sign of union, where we can all sit and converse as a family; it is also the time to feed and eat together, in our case it is the Word and the Body and Blood of Christ.
In reality we all have the right to both foods; may we not be an obstacle so that other brothers and sisters cannot sit down and nourish themselves with these two foods.
Access to the Lord’s Table is free and open to all.
And all of us who feed on the Word and the Body and Blood of the Lord cannot remain on the sidelines of pastoral activities, but must set out to announce to others that they can also benefit from this Table; may it happen to us as it did to the disciples of Emmaus who, when they finished eating with the Master, went to announce it to others, preparing them for a new moment of sitting at the table with the Master.
God the Father’s great desire, like that of all fathers, is to see that all his children come together to eat together and, for this reason, he urges us to do so.
In reality, eating is not and should not be a solitary act, but rather a communal act, because we are made to live together and share with others.
We are all children of the same Father and, therefore, form one human family.
Therefore, at the table to which the Father summons us, we all fit.
If anyone is left without food, if anyone feels excluded, if anyone cannot sit at the table, something is wrong with those of us who are seated; God the Father’s desire is not fulfilled.
Who are we to prevent other brethren from being nourished by the Word and Body of Christ in our Church?
In short, the table (Word and Eucharist) is for everyone.
The only one who could create rules and laws to keep someone away from it is Jesus, its owner.
And he did not.
And he does not.
And he will not.
Who are we to prevent other brothers from being nourished by the Word and the Body of Christ in our Church?
If we want a synodal community we cannot close the door of the Church, since, in such a synodal process, it must be expressed in the ordinary way of living and working of the Church […and] it is realized through communal listening to the Word and the celebration of the Eucharist.