This is how you are to eat it: with your loin girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight.
Wearing sandals in the Summer is on of my favorite things. My favorite style are those with an orthotic foot-bed. Even in winter with socks, I love the feels of sandals. When the sole ( not soul) wears, I replace them. I polish the leather and clean them periodically. The sandals are always ready.
Just like our first reading from the Book of Exodus we must always be ready because we are on a journey. It is a journey of faith to our heavenly reward. It concludes the first description of the Passover as, This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution. Of course today we celebrate the Passover every Holy Thursday and daily in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We celebrate it because we are on a journey and we have to be ready.
This brings us to our Gospel today. To explain it, I will use the story of my Grandfather, Michael Glinka. He was a Polish immigrant farmer who settled in Northern Wisconsin in the 1920’s. He died way before I was born from Pneumonia. He died in the Winter at the beginning of the season of Lent. The poor Parish Priest wouldn’t bury him in the Church. The justification of the Priest was that my Grandfather had not completed his Easter Duty which was to go to Confession and receive Communion during the Easter Season.
My Grandmother’s Lutheran neighbors arranged for my Grandfather to be buried in a Lutheran cemetery. What happened later is important. The Catholic Bishop enlarged their cemetery and bought the cemetery where my Grandfather was buried. My Grandfather ended up in the Catholic cemetery that he was denied. He just died before he could complete his Easter Duty.
The poor Priest who denied burial to my Grandfather was having a nervous breakdown and no one knew it. He is the reason that I pray for my Priests daily. They are human and have the same problems that you or I do. In our Gospel Jesus says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. We all need mercy but we must be ready.
Our journey is perpetual. We need to keep or souls ( soles ) in good repair. We need to perpetually be ready for that journey. For the Son of Man, is the Lord of the sabbath.
God Love you Always
Bob Burford
Picture Credit: “Old mans sandals” by soxer123 is marked with CC PDM 1.0
