Last Supper image

The Last Supper account in John’s gospel contains a curious picture. The evangelist describes the beloved disciple as reclining on the breast of Jesus. What is contained in this image? A picture of how each of us should be focused as we look at the world.
            When you put your head on the breast of another, your ear is just above the person’s heart, and you are able to hear his or her heartbeat. Thus, in John’s image, we see the beloved disciple with his ear on Jesus’ heart and his eyes peering out at the world. 
            This is an image, a mystical one. Among other things, it is a picture of gentleness. What it shows, however is not a saccharine piety, a sweetness hard to swallow, but a softness that comes from being at peace, from being so rooted and centered in a love that one can look out at the world without bitterness, anger, jealousy, the sense of being cheated and the need to blame or compete with others.
            In John’s gospel, it is also a eucharistic image. What we see there, the image of a person with his ear on Jesus’ heart, is how John wants us to imagine ourselves when we are at communion. In its reality, that is what the eucharist is, a physical reclining on the breast of Jesus. It is also an image of how we should touch God and be sustained by him in solitude. 
                                    Ron Rolheiser
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation