Feeding on the Word

There's nothing like food to bring people together.  We just feasted around our Thanksgiving tables, and many of us were involved in bringing food to those who could not afford a Thanksgiving meal. My experience on the Pine Ridge Reservation and in Rwanda, where despite the poor economies, people shared together what little they had to celebrate a birthday, a death or a wedding.  So much food appeared that there was enough for everyone to take some home at the end of the gathering.
Isaiah speaks of a banquet on the holy mountain complete with rich foods and choice wines.  It is a victory feast in thanksgiving for the salvation won by God. (See Is 25:6-10).  Jesus twice feeds the multitudes with a few fish and loaves of bread.  All are satisfied and baskets of food fragments remain.
We honor St. Francis Xavier today, a true Advent saint, who, though he fasted, lavishly fed the hungry with the Word of God, traveling to the Orient and almost into China itself.  He fed with the food that lasts, that satisfies our deepest hunger.  His life calls us to satisfy our hunger in the Word of God, the Scriptures and especially the Word made flesh, Jesus.  This is the time to feed ourselves with more prayer with the Bible and more attendance at Mass.  Why waste our time on anything else?
Bro. Rene