Menus in many restaurants have a special section listing food items for children. These are usually not simply smaller portions of entrees (which can usually be found in the section of the menu for senior citizens), but particular kinds of food which appeal to children in ways that the normal fare on the menu might not.

Curiously these items are often not as nutritious as the regular kinds of food on the menu. But usually the children get the food they want because it is the food they will gladly eat.

The scriptures today tell us that God desires our wholeness and our well-being. God wants to alleviate our hunger, our illnesses, our sorrows and everything which distorts our sense of who we are and how we relate to one another and to God. God sets before us a lavish banquet. God offers us himself as the living bread come down from heaven so we might be united to God and to one another and live together forever. But sadly we sometimes reject the banquet that God offers and look for an alternative which has a children's menu so we can make our selections for things which seem more pleasing to our tastes.

This first week of Advent we are invited to look back to what God has done while looking forward to where we are going to help us decide how we are going to live, what we are going to choose to eat, in the present moment wherein we are living.