The ultimate Comfort Food

Fall has seem to hit Michigan over the past week or so, this morning on my way in to work it was 46 degrees, that’s a tad bit chilly for an August morning.

Well so  much for global warming….

I love the cooler weather, I love to sit in my house with all the windows open and feel the cool breeze on me, drinking a hot cup of coffee or tea, or having a cup a soup… The dog’s laying by my side and an old movie on TV. Man that to me is a perfect fall day, what more can one ask for!

I have often written about what makes for a perfect day for me, there was the cat in the hat kind of day I wrote about and I have written about sitting on the couch watching old movies before. So what keeps me coming back to this perfection? I would have to say it the comfort they bring, the warm hug that is associated to the memory. It’s like comfort food or that scent that stirs up old feelings. We all have triggers, something that draws us back to a happier time a moment or two in this crazy world that brings calm and order to all around us.

A weekend or two ago was such a day, it was a Saturday and I was home alone, it was raining out and the temperature was a tab-bit cool. I have a list of house hold chores to do, yet I chose to sit on the couch and watch old movies. It was, with out a doubt, one of the most perfect days I have had in some time! I felt good, I felt warm and I felt hugged!

This same feeling, this feeling of comfort and safety is the same feeling we should have each and every Sunday at Mass. Now I admit there is no couch and you cant have a cup of hot coffee or a bowl of soup, but still the house the Jesus built should be a safe place. We should feel the welcoming hug of Jesus as we enter in to his house. But sadly often times we do not. Often times we feel just the opposite, we feel unwelcomed and intrusive. Now I know and you know it’s not Jesus who makes us feel this way.

So who or what makes us feel this way. The simple answer, sin, yep sin, be it ours or someone else’s.  How can we feel comfortable knowing we have hurt God, knowing that we have caused him pain and suffering. It would be like walking in to someone’s house covered with mud, it would be hard for you to feel comfortable knowing that you are tracking mud through out their house. Sin is our mud in the house that Jesus built. We know we are sinners, we know we are tracking mud in to the house of our Lord, yet we enter and sit.

Why do we enter and sit, why do we choose to enter the house of our Lord covered in sin. Why do we choose to allow our sin to splatter and cover what is good and holy? Because Jesus invited us in to his house, knowing that we are covered in sin, so he can wash our sins away. He wants to bath us, to wipe our sins away, and to wrap us in a new towel, to comfort us and hold us, to hug us.

So come to the house that our Lord built, enter as you are, covered in mud and grime, do not worry for our Lord wants you as you are. Sit and be comfortable there is no coffee or tea to offer but what there is, is better, what He offers is himself, his body, blood, soul and divinity, the Holy Eucharist, the ultimate comfort food.

Now if we could only replace the pew’s with nice comfy couches and chairs….

 

Paul