At the onset of a new year, guilt-driven promises of starting a diet or getting back in shape can be overheard post-holiday conversations.
While the festive portions of food we consumed are rightly cut back, there is something we experience every year during Christmas that perhaps should not be brought to a halt. It felt almost natural in the past days to open our homes, extend our tables and cook the best meals we can muster. Perhaps without even knowing why, we felt the need and the desire to be hospitable, caring and generous.
Our Christmas lunches are sufficiently evocative to ask ourselves: “What’s in a meal? Why does it make sense to spend time around a table to share a meal? And why is it not the same when someone is missing or far away during Christmas?”
Despite the fact that we are increasingly thinking of ourselves as more autonomous and self-sufficient, a deep desire harks back in us for relationships, to feel loved and acknowledged. It is a tragedy that as soon as the festive season comes to an end, we think we can cut down not just on the calories but also on this deep-seated desire.
What distinguishes human beings from the rest of the animal world is not just the way we eat but why we eat. We do not eat just to nourish ourselves. Coming together at table is a symbolic gesture that developed long after Homo sapiens learned to provide food for himself and cook it over a fire.
The award-winning 2018 film Green Book is inspired by the true story of a concert tour by Don Shirley, a highly talented African-American classical and jazz pianist in the Deep South, where racism is still rampant. While he was critically acclaimed for his musical talent, the pianist was not allowed to eat in the presence of those who did not share the colour of his skin. In a moment of awakening, he decides that being applauded on an illustrious stage for his ‘performance’ is simply not enough, for his heart yearned for something more.
It should be no surprise that Jesus himself chooses a meal to symbolise what it means to be his disciple. The scandal of the Christian gospel celebrated in Christmas is that God, in His Son, has come to sit at table with us. We do not find Him at the seat of honour but washing our tired feet and serving us out of His own life. There is something deeply spiritual in responding to our need to eat together because while we nourish our bodies, we also nourish our hearts.
During my short break in Malta for the Christmas holidays, I was invited by a family for an afternoon tea. After knocking on their door, I was called in from inside the house. The door was closed but not locked, and all I had to do was to come inside. Leaving a door closed but not locked was a subtle but clear manifestation of hospitality.
The temptation to relock the door of our heart after the festive season is strong, but the life-giving possibilities of leaving it unlocked are endless, both for us and others.
The talented African-American pianist was wisely told that the world is full of lonely people afraid to make the first move. Clearly, first moves do entail a risk, but fearfully dieting on our need for meaningful relationships or being indifferent to the camouflaged loneliness of others will simply extend the deserts that our society is building for itself.
Fr Alex Zammit is a religious priest from the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP). He currently resides in Rome studying for a Master’s in Missiology at the Gregorian University.