An accomplished academic atheist was taking a leisurely hike through the woods. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river looking for a place to picnic, he heard a distinctive rustling in the bushes behind him. When he turned, he saw a seven-foot grizzly bear charging toward him! He started to run as fast as he could, but realized the bear was closing in on him. Then, he tripped and fell to the ground. When he rolled over the bear was right on top of him, raising his paw to strike him. At that instant the Atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”
Time Stopped! The bear froze. The forest was silent. Then, a bright light shone upon the man, and a Voice said, “You deny My existence for all these years, teach others that I don’t exist, and even credit creation to some cosmic ‘accident’. Do you really expect Me to help you out of this particular predicament? Can I count on you as a believer?”
The atheist looked directly into the Light, “Well, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?”
After a moment the Voice replied, “Very well.”
The Light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. Then the bear brought both paws together, bowed his head and said “Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Generally this ridiculous redactor uses this forum to highlight quaint customs of the liturgical calendar in order that the Faithful might be eminently edified to restore the practical practice of these pious projects. (With the exception, perhaps, of leaping over the St. John’s bonfires unless one happened to be a track and field Olympian.) This e-pistle, however, seeks to remind us of a more pedestrian, quotidian ritual: grace before meals. Not only in the amicable domestic hearth but perhaps of more immediate import, especially in consideration of the rapid vapid “pluralization” of what were once considered common mores, in settings public this simple, short supplication brings to concrete fruition the divine promise of the Gospels that “wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, in their midst, I AM”.
Because you never know when your last meal will be.
Mr. Screwtape
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