A Lenten Reflection – The Multiplication Table

The website The Catholic Thing has published a Lenten reflection by Gil Bailie entitled, The Multiplication Table. It is a classic piece of Gil’s work. I especially appreciate the play of the title and the text. ‘Multiplication table’ is not mentioned in the article. And it is not until the Chesterton quote at the end that the concept of enlargement (Church bigger on the inside) comes in. Hopefully, this leaves the reader pondering “What does ‘the multiplication table’ have to do with this?” – Could it be that the Eucharistic altar is the table upon and from which the Church grows, raising out of the grace of our God haunted predecessor’s lived experience into our present lives and the lives of those who come after us?

The Eucharistic liturgy is also where we bind ourselves to our ancestors going all the way back to Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, and to the first Passover in Egypt and beyond. Turning forward, the Mass is the prefiguration and foretaste of the Messianic Banquet we will celebrate when we enter, God willing, into full communion with the Trinitarian Life of God.

While doing some recent cleaning chores in the Cornerstone Forum office I came across a couple of old cassette tape albums that contained recordings of presentations René Girard made in Sonoma in 1991 and 1994. I hope to make these available on our streaming audio podcast. At the beginning of one of the tapes, after Gil Bailie introduces Professor Girard to the audience, René Girard takes a few moments to talk about Gil as a preface to his remarks. I’ve prepared a short excerpt of this below: