Many of the memories from Church that I recall most clearly from my youth involve sitting around tables where I would break and share bread with family, friends, and members of the faith community. It was at these communal tables that I experienced most fully a sense of God’s love and abundance in my life. In these moments of sacred encounter, the gifts of bread, human connection, and God’s loving presence came together beautifully to nurture my young heart, mind, spirit, and body.
The values, insights, and lessons that were taught to me by the loving people in my life, who were authentically striving to not simply worship Jesus but to embark on the difficult task of following Jesus, is what remains with me to this day. While it was bread that we ate, these elders taught me that our bread was meant to be shared. Our faith and commitment to being followers of Jesus meant that we must be in service
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to humanity and the world by being people who love mercy, kindness, and justice.
Jesus, in his brilliant and insightful way, understood the power of symbols and metaphors. The bread of life that we enjoy around our tables of communion is where we are fed in order to feed, where we are served in order to serve, and where we are loved so that we may love others. In breaking bread, sharing it and eating it, we are meant to be transformed so that we may transform the world.

Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz

Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz is the executive director and cofounder of the Coalition for Spiritual & Public Leadership (CSPL) and an adjunct assistant professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago. Learn more about CSPL at csplaction.org.