Third Sunday of Easter – May 4, 2025
“Come, have breakfast.” How often have we heard those words or something similar in our lifetime? Mothers, grandmothers, dads, lovers, hosts, all inviting us to eat. Strangers and soon-to-be-friends asking us to stay a while. Spouses, siblings, and roommates bidding us to linger a bit over coffee before the busyness of the day takes us from them. For many, the procession after Mass to Sunday brunch is also sacred.
How ordinary is the Lord’s invitation to his friends! And yet how extraordinary the moment became. Jesus’s offer was not merely to eat some food after a long night’s work. It was a summons to his dearest companions—to those with whom he had broken bread so many times before—to break their fast of bitter shame that kept them from tasting the sweetness of forgiveness.
How ordinary is the Lord’s invitation to his friends! And yet how extraordinary the moment became. Jesus’s offer was not merely to eat some food after a long night’s work.
Break their fast of doubt and unworthiness so they would hunger no longer for purpose and mission. Break their fast of loneliness by being present even as they grieved.
Every Eucharist is a breaking of a fast—indeed, in a literal sense, though most forgo the traditional pre-Communion fast. But it can be so much more if we jump all in, as Simon Peter did, lightly clad of our burdens but bringing to the meal what has been given in abundance—our very lives. So much can happen over breakfast.
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