Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,
“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” we respond in the psalm for this Sunday. We use our senses of taste and sight daily, often without consciously doing so. The psalmist reminds us that we must hone these senses in order to use them well.
A sommelier tastes wine with full consciousness and can note the subtle flavors and quality of what he samples. I certainly cannot do so because I haven’t honed that sense. The “danger” for me is that I can’t distinguish between a fine wine and one of lesser quality. Therefore, I can be duped. How often that happens to us in a spiritual sense! We can easily fall prey to desiring that which does not really satisfy and confusing cheap pleasures for real and substantive ones. We must train our spiritual sense of taste to be able to desire that which is of God and reject that which is a cheap substitute.
We could say the same for our sense of sight. When I was a child, I would look through the cabinets when I was hungry and exasperatingly declare to my mom, “There’s nothing to eat!” My mom knew there was plenty to eat, but because my sight was only set on a “quick fix,” I couldn’t properly discern that which was before me. Without true spiritual vision, we’re more apt to focus on what we don’t find before us rather than being attentive to the goodness of the Lord present in our life. We then become envious of what others have, rather than being grateful for what we have.
When our spiritual vision is well trained to see the goodness of God, then how sweet it is to taste his goodness in our life. This applies to the spiritual feast of the Eucharist: our spiritual vision prepares us to taste his goodness in Holy Communion. Whereas vision responds to the beauty outside of us, taste responds to the delicacy of that which is inside us. See the Lord’s goodness present in creation around you, and that prepares you for tasting the inestimable gift of his communion with you through the Eucharist.
In Christ,
Fr. Dave
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