Excerpts from "Eating your Liturgy" by Andrew Casad

As we look ahead to Thanksgiving -- a time when families will gather together around the table to offer praise and thanks to God -- and the beginning of a new liturgical year on the First Sunday of Advent (December 1), I would like to offer some ways that we can bring the liturgy home to our dinner tables. One of the most powerful ways to get into the seasons and so to celebrate the rhythms of time created by God is to celebrate at home what we celebrate in the Church.  By making our dinner table menus a celebration of creation all year round, not just at Thanksgiving, we can delight in God's goodness and abundance with which he surrounds us at each season.  Especially for holydays you can make a commitment to preparing foods particular to that season, serving food that is in season and available locally.  Eating with the seasons becomes not only a way to bring home the life of the Church but also is a statement of your commitment to be good stewards of God's creation.  Catholic teaching finds fulfillment at our tables when we become aware of the rich blessings which are "fruit of the earth and work of human hands." We become aware of our connection to the land that allows us to have life in abundance as we come to reflect on the practices used to cultivate the earth, the treatment of animals we rely on for food, and the labor of men and women who produce our food and with whom we are called to stand in solidarity.  All of this reminds us, in the words of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, that Eating is a Moral Act.

And so this Advent season, I would encourage you to eat your liturgy: find out what is grown here locally.  Use localharvest.org to find a farmers' market close to where you live.  Find recipes that coincide with these local products and have your family help you in preparing them.  Tell stories related to the liturgical life of the Church and share Advent prayers of expectation, longing for the fulfillment of God's promise to visit his people and bring light into the middle of our darkest season.  As you do so, you will be eating your liturgy. And just as we come to associate particular musical settings of the Mass, colors of vestments and decorations, and the use of incense with particular liturgical seasons, we will also begin to associate these local and seasonal foods with the rhythms of our Church life-the rhythms of God's good creation. Soon the smell of plum pudding will become associated with the beginning of Advent (December 1). Ultimately your kitchen and dining room table will become an extension of the Eucharistic banquet we share every Sunday!