Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 64

“We make you welcome to our community, Nicholas. The Lord bless and keep you with his protecting hand.”

Just then more people arrived, a couple I took to be a man and his wife, as well as two more men in working clothes whom I assumed had come straight from the market. Finally there was a rather distinguished elderly man wearing what looked like an expensive toga, at which point John bade the group to be seated. He signalled to a servant waiting in a side room, who brought in a basket containing a large round loaf of bread and a flask of wine with a beaker. The lad placed them on the table and then sat with everyone else.

John led the prayers which preceded their shared meal. I sat to the side and listened.

“Almighty God, be kindly disposed to we who have done wrong, through deed and word, as we remember the day Jesus called his disciples together in the upper room in Jerusalem on the night before he was tried by Pontius Pilate and then crucified, dying for our sins. He accepted death to give us the hope and blessing for our future.”

He paused for a minute or so, head bowed and then he continued, “So Jesus, on the night of the Passover, took bread and broke it before them and handing a portion to each of the twelve he told them that this was his body, broken for them and urged them to take, eat, to remember his death and his passing.

THE JOURNEY