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Connections…
April 14, 2002--Third Sunday of Easter
At Emmaus, while Jesus was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the two disciples. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.
Luke 24:13-35
A gift to remember
When the young woman volunteered to become a foster mother, she knew that the children she would take in would eventually move on. Still, that did not stop her from growing fond of a three-year old girl who came to stay with her.
As time passed, the little girl became attached to an old stuffed rabbit that the woman had had since she was a girl. The rabbit became the child's most cherished toy.
After two years, the day finally came when the little girl was to be adopted by a new family. Though she knew that this would open up worlds of opportunity for the child, the woman still found it hard to say goodbye to the vivacious youngster she would probably never see again.
As they said their final goodbyes, she gave the youngster a special present - the stuffed rabbit she loved so much. "This is for you to remember me by."
The overjoyed child hugged her and the toy. Then, quite suddenly, the little girl ran to her bedroom one last time. The girl returned with a stuffed animal of her own.
"Here," the little girl said. "This is so you won't forget me, either."
That stuffed animal, the foster mother later said, was the best present anyone ever gave her.
[Adapted from "Never underestimate the love of a child" by Alicia Swartz, cyberstory.com]
CONNECTION: What binds us together as families, as friends, and as a church, are the memories we share. Like the two stuffed animals exchanged by the foster mother and her young ward, the bread we bless, break and share in the Eucharist is the living memory of the great Paschal event of Christ. In the word we hear together and the bread we break together, God's great love is both remembered and relived, giving us hope and direction and meaning in the course of our own individual journeys. In the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the Risen One is never forgotten but always present and alive in our midst. u
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