Patrick Gildea

“We don't come to the table to fight or to defend. We don't come to prove or to conquer, to draw lines in the sand or to stir up trouble. We come to the table because our hunger brings us there. We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity. The table is the great equalizer, the level playing field many of us have been looking everywhere for. The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children. We allow someone else to meet our need. In a world that prides people on not having needs, on going longer and faster, on going without, on powering through, the table is a place of safety and rest and humanity, where we are allowed to be as fragile as we feel.”
― Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

“The dead do not need
aspirin or
sorrow,
I suppose.
but they might need
rain.
not shoes
but a place to
walk.
not cigarettes,
they tell us,
but a place to
burn.
or we're told:
space and a place to
fly
might be the
same.
the dead don't need
me.
nor do the
living.
but the dead might need
each
other.
in fact, the dead might need
everything we
need
and
we need so much
if we only knew
what it
was.
it is
probably
everything
and we will all
probably die
trying to get
it
or die
because we
don't get
it.
I hope
you will understand
when I am dead
I got
as much
as
possible.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“Every time it rains, the soil counts every drop to know exactly how many times to thank to God!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Why did Our Blessed Lord use bread and wine as the elements of this Memorial? First of all, because no two substances in nature better symbolize unity than bread and wine. As bread is made from a multiplicity of grains of wheat, and wine is made from a multiplicity of grapes, so the many who believe are one in Christ. Second, no two substances in nature have to suffer more to become what they are than bread and wine. Wheat has to pass through the rigors of winter, be ground beneath the Calvary of a mill, and then subjected to purging fire before it can become bread. Grapes in their turn must be subjected to the Gethsemane of a wine press and have their life crushed from them to become wine. Thus, do they symbolize the Passion and Sufferings of Christ, and the condition of Salvation, for Our Lord said unless we die to ourselves we cannot live in Him. A third reason is that there are no two substances in nature which have more traditionally nourished man than bread and wine. In bringing these elements to the altar, men are equivalently bringing themselves. When bread and wine are taken or consumed, they are changed into man's body and blood. But when He took bread and wine, He changed them into Himself.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ