Father John told everyone of one of his memories from boyhood. One day, his father gave his mother a single rose- just one. When he was a boy, Father John didn't think much of just one rose. He thought it would look silly in a vase and wondered if they had a vase small enough to put it in. Why would you give anyone just one rose- it wasn't a very big present, was it?

But his mother didn't put it in a vase; she simply kept it as it was, wrapped in a piece of paper. Of course, it died and faded, but still his mother kept it, just as it was. Father John couldn't see the point of that. His mother kept the rose for years, long after it was dead and dried up; in fact she kept it all her life. How pointless, Father John thought- just one, dried up old rose that had never even been in a vase.

Then, one day, when he was a man, Father John thought about the rose- and realised what it meant. His father had given his mother the rose as a sign of his love for her- and she had understood it as that. There didn't need to be a big bunch of flowers, because one rose said it all. And she didn't need to put it in water, because what was important about the rose wasn't about its being a flower, but about the love between the two people who knew about it. When the flower died and dried up, when it was wrapped in a piece of old paper, where you couldn't see it all the time, the love still carried on.

Father John told us that God's love for us came to us at Communion, just as the rose brought love. We see a piece of bread, but, because Jesus died for love of us, we receive God at Communion. Love changes everything and lasts forever. We eat the bread: we receive love.