It’s the small piece you break off before eating the rest yourself. It’s that tiny piece dropped to the floor to satisfy an anxious dog beneath your kitchen table. It’s your only pathway that leads you back home.

It’s those small morsels of bread tossed behind you that mark the leaving of your beginnings and your home behind. But it’s a carefully traced trail that leads you back home whenever you need to return. A simple morsel of bread. Wheat. Sustenance. The morning smell that began your growing up days and now its memory-smell lives within you until the end of your days. (For us kids it was baked bread topped with cinnamon to compliment the wheat from Cream of Wheat before going to school.)

If you’re young, those morsels pave what you’re leaving toward – unknown, multiple steps. Or, if you’re me, it’s more as memory-morsels leading me back home if you’re older and soon-to-be unemployed.

Throughout life we can lose our way, our way may lose us, or those we love leave. But it’s those darn morsels that intrigue me. Those morsels are slung over her head as she smugly leaves home for the first time with her new Apple computer, or they are sadly remembered as a wonderful job leaves me. Those morsels are reminders of a place, a welcoming place, the beginning place; a place called home.

The Body and Blood of Christ are but a morsel and a sip to bring us back and remind us about of our eternal home, where we all began. You bow and hold out your hand to me wanting a piece of Christ to eat but it really ought to be tossed over your shoulder to show you the way back home. I bless the young ones unable to eat the morsels because they still take home for granted. But time quickly changes that. Home is where sincerity, trust and hope each has their own room, either in their absence or in practice – or both. The attic is where unexpected surprises reside and the basement is full of dusty regrets. Each location explains its usage.

I lost my job, and she’s off to college to find one. My tossed morsels are long spoiled (but when I turn around I can still see them). Hers are freshly pitched over her shoulder.
For a parent to “let go” of a college-age daughter is second only to sending her into a war zone – only this time it’s the battle of life. Is it her parent’s last wave at the college’s entrance or perhaps an invisible hug from her father (because, “Dad, everybody’s watching!”) Or, is it looking for meaningful work in my work’s twilight.

You can only look ahead by looking back. Your past does not define you and your future will not save you. Your past greatly influences you but your future is entirely yours. But one path is clearly mark by your simple pieces – morsels from the promises of God, the actions and admonitions of the God-Man, and the Holy Spirit in her willingness to see you through anything that you either throw at life or that life throws at you.

It’s those persistent but ever-present morsels that bring both her and me back again. Hers in her own time and mine in mine. Mine is the easier one. I know about the morsels and the way back home because I read that fairy tale and believe it. She’ll live that story without having probably read the old story. Those morsels tossed behind both of us cannot disappear – they only lead back to where those morning smells continue to live and is so often taken for granted – that place, that anchor we call home.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

All available in paperback or Kindle on Amazon.com

                                                     “Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of humorous and reflective letters written by my cats over twenty years
                                                           “Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
                                                “Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons of
Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter – a great seasonal gift
                                        “Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
                         “Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up