In each of our lives Jesus comes as the bread of life – to be eaten, to be consumed by us.  
This is how he loves us.  Then Jesus comes in our human life as the hungry one, the other,
hoping to be fed with the bread of our life, our hearts loving, and our hands serving.  
In loving and serving, we prove that we have been created in the likeness of God,
for God is love and when we love we are like God.  This is what Jesus meant when he said,
“Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
                                                                                                                --Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Read, reflect and journal your response to this joyful pronouncement:   
We’re gonna sit at the welcome table!
We’re gonna sit at the welcome table
One of these days!  Hallelujah!
We’re gonna sit at the welcome table!
Gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days.
All kinds of people around that table
One of these days! Hallelujah!
All kinds of people round that table!
Gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days.
--Afro-American spiritual

Above the clamor of our violence
Your word of truth resounds,
O God of majesty and power.
Over nations enshrouded in despair
Your justice dawns.
Grant your household
A discerning spirit and a watchful eye
To perceive the hour in which we live.
Hasten the advent of that day
When weapons of war shall be banished,
Our deeds of darkness cast off,
And all your scattered children gathered into one.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
Whose day draws near:
Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
One God, for ever and ever.
--Prayer, First Sunday of Advent

Practice lectio divina using:
Creator of the stars of night, Your people’s every lasting light’
O Christ, Redeemer of us all,
We pray You hear us when we call.
When this old world drew on toward night,
You came, but not in splendor bright,
Not as a monarch, but the child
Of Mary, blameless mother mild.
At Your great name, O Jesus, now
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow:
All things on earth with one accord,
Like those in heaven, shall call You Lord.
To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the spirit. Three in one,
Praise, honor, might, and glory be
From age to age eternally.
                                                --Latin hymn, 9th century