THE PLACE OF THE TABLE: From the family table to the eucharistic table

“The table needs to be rediscovered as a place of healing and restoration, and even as a privileged place for the revelation of God’s grace and love.” (Fr. Léo)

THE SERVANT OF GOD FR. Léo stated countless times that the table is a sacred place. In our day, we run the serious risk of forgetting this sacred character. Modern life, filled with haste and stress, gives us countless excuses to set aside the beautiful ritual of sitting at the table, especially as a family. At Bethânia, we seek to value the table even more, recovering a habit that has been lost by many: combining the act of sitting together at the table with the art of eating well and healthily. We always reserve quality time to be at the table and to experience together a special moment of communion and sharing. For this reason, we make healthy eating a true pillar of full life in our community. Fr. Léo used to say: “We urgently need—and this applies to us as well—to relearn the art of nourishment.”

Indeed, the table is for us a sacred place and, at the same time, a “theological locus.” By theological locus, we mean the recognized sources from which theologians and spiritual writers draw their arguments in order to sustain a discourse about God. In classical theology, this expression first gained prominence with the Spanish Dominican theologian Melchior Cano and his work De Locis Theologicis (Plans, 2006), which pioneered the use of the term.