Sit Down on the Grass

Matthew 14:19-21

And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

Sit down on the grass, all you weary of body, sit down on the grass and repose your soul.

The earth will hold you upon a living bed of green, the waning sun alight upon your skin,

soft breezes to cool and refresh your flesh.  And I…

I, with my sight upon the infinite reaches of heaven and my beating heart within your own, I will gaze deeply into your eyes, into that heart, into the core of your being, and I will give you all that you need, all for which you hunger and thirst, and you will be filled with the food of my love.

See, the food of the earth fractures within my hands that are eager to give life;

the earth spreads open at my word to yield forth its sweet verdancy and receive you;

and the life that I give comes from me to you, and through you

to your brother and sister, who receive and share onward the food of my love.

You would willingly hazard long journeys and rough passage for the food of the earth,

the earth whose very stones would cry out my name if you should deign to speak it not – but what of the food of my love?  The food that does not perish with the perishing of the earth, the food that feeds not the mortal and so never satisfies, but the food that feeds the immortal, that feeds your heart beating with mine, that feeds you fully and eternally, satisfying your ever-living soul –

For this food, you need only to sit down on the grass and receive all that I give to you.  You need only to listen to my voice, to hear my word, to let my heart into your heart, and to do as I call you to do, so that you may be who I created you to be.

The food that I give you to eat is the food of heaven, is the food of my love, is my very life, my body and blood that pulses and flows and fractures the earth to give you life, abundant life, in the fullness of reality, in the fullness of who you are: You, pulsing in your blood for the goodness of Creation, you, through whose body flows the divine action, you, who break apart the clods of earth for the perishing beauty and bounty of the seed – You hear my voice and crave my word, you long for the Goodness, Divinity and Unperishing Beauty and Bounty of my heart, so listen and receive… be fed perpetually… Sit down on the grass, eat and be filled with the food of my love… now and forever.

Christina Chase