The Rev. John Thomas tells about a week he once spent at a Benedictine monastery with a group of other seminary students. At noon each day he and the other students joined the Benedictine monks, along with a number of people from the local community, to celebrate the Eucharist.

One day Rev. Thomas watched a couple of retirement age make their way to receive the bread and the cup. The man wore a sweatshirt that said, “I can only be nice to one person a day, and today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look too good either.”

The Rev. Thomas had a negative reaction to the man’s shirt. What was this man thinking? Thomas wondered. And why did his wife let him get out of the house dressed that way? Why would he receive Christ’s broken body with a message emblazoned across his chest that read, “…