The quiet, unseen labor of bearing Christ’s presence—like a plowman’s work—teaches us that through broken bread, love is made full and mercy becomes the hands with which we till the world. —D.
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Humility arrives like the low stoop of a plowman under the yoke—quiet and steady, unseen in its worth. It lingers in the bowed spine of service, in trembling hands that cradle God Himself yet shake more for the cold within them than for the Mystery they touch. What is this then, this bread, laid gentle into the furrows of calloused palms, into fingers too often balled into fists of fear or pride? There He is—frail as barley, firm as the earth’s own core. And we, unready in our frozen hearts, bear Him with a frost that cracks and speaks of distance. Yet He stays. He waits, His mercy a slow thaw dripping through the tight, unseen seams of our souls.
And what of the table, the altar of hearth and heart, where love is lavished on steaming bowls and unmeasured loaves? Hospitality is a homely fire, stoked by the hands of those who cannot bear a guest to leave unsatisfied, each plate loaded with care, the kettle ceaselessly boiling. If this is so for those who gather around our tables of wood and stone, how is it that we fail the feast of His own making, dawdling at the doorway to the banquet hall? The scraps of our own fields we save; not a gleaned stalk is left unbundled, not a drop of oil spilled from the lamp, and yet His abundance spills at His feast unclaimed, pooling round plates too often left unfilled.
Then comes love—a fullness rising from bread broken, from the poured wine. This love, silent and heavy as harvest, gives peace because it has taken peace from Christ Himself. As He gathers us to Himself in the meal, knitting hunger to abundance and flesh to Spirit, He sends us with hands imprinted by grace. These hands—bearing now the weight of His gift, unseen but substantial as the load of the plow—are called not to remain still but to till the world with His mercy. And so, though the earth we till may seem barren, our hands, though worn, carry the seed of something sacred—planted in humility, watered with love, and destined to yield the fruits of His grace.