During The Deck, two weeks ago, Melinda told us this story.

A few months back Melinda discovered a feral cat and her kittens living in her wood pile.  She began to leave food and water out for them.  At first they cautiously approached, but they grew in boldness. After a few weeks she was able to actually call to the kittens to come and eat – but the mother cat still hung back in fear.

Then suddenly the mamma and her babies disappeared.  No sign of them in the wood pile.  As Melinda told us this sad conclusion, she was as depressed as an empty-nester.

But to her joy and surprise, the cats reappeared!  Last Friday at 6:15 pm they were suddenly all outside the kitchen door. The kittens were desperately hungry, mewing and running back and forth. They had grown noticeably. She immediately cut up some ham, which they devoured, and Bob defrosted some chicken for a second course, which they also quickly cleaned up. Mama cat watched from a distance and then licked the empty dish.

Then they disappeared again; Bob and Melinda haven’t seen them since.

This, my friends, is Holy Communion.   We are known and beloved by Jesus Christ, but we wander away for some reason.   Yet this meal is always there, for us – Christ calling us back to intimacy.

This Sunday we cannot celebrate Holy Communion together, as we would traditionally on the First Sunday of the month. But we’ll consider the deeper emotional dimension of communion:  intimacy with Christ.

How do we find that intimacy?  We’ll learn how the Lord lures us in — just like Melinda, with her cat food.

And God’s way of luring us to intimacy shows us how to find intimacy with others.