Table fellowship means eating and drinking together around the same table. This is one of the most ancient signs of human intimacy since the relationships that sustain the family are built and rebuilt continuously though it.

The table, before being a piece of furniture, marks an existential experience and a rite. It is the foremost place of the family, of communion and kinship. Meals are shared there and there, the joy of gathering, well-being without pretense, direct communion which translates into commentary without ceremony on daily activities, into uncensored opinions on the events in the local, national and international chronicle.

A meal is more than just something material. It is the sacrament of reunion and communion. The food is appreciated and is the object of comments. The greatest joy of the mother or cook is to note the satisfaction of fellow diners.

But we should recognize that the table is also a place of family tensions and conflicts, where matters are debated openly, where differences are spelled out and agreements can be established, where disturbing silences also exist that reveal a collective malaise. Contemporary culture has so changed the sense of daily time as a result of work and productivity that it has weakened the symbolic sense of the table. This has been set aside for Sundays or special moments, like birthdays or anniversaries, when family members and friends get together. But, as a general rule, it has ceased to be the fixed point of convergence of the family. Unfortunately, the family table has been substituted by fast food, a quick meal that only makes nutrition possible but not table fellowship.

Table fellowship is so crucial that it is linked to the very essence of the human being as human. Seven million years ago the slow and progressive separation of great apes and humans from a common ancestor began. The specific traits of the human being emerged in a mysterious way that is difficult to reconstruct historically. Nonetheless ethno-biologists and archeologists call our attention to an interesting fact: when our anthropoid ancestors went out to gather fruit and seeds, to hunt and to fish, they did not eat individually what they were able to bring together. They took the food and brought it to the group. And thus they practiced table fellowship — distributing the food among themselves and eating communally as a group.

Therefore, table fellowship, which assumes solidarity and cooperation with each other, enabled the first leap from animality to humanity. It was only a beginning step, but a decisive one because it initiated the basic characteristic of the human species different from other complex species (there is only a 1.6% genetic difference between chimpanzees and us) — table fellowship, solidarity and cooperation in the act of eating. And that small distinction makes all the difference.

That table fellowship that made us human yesterday continues to renew us as human beings today. Therefore it is important to set aside time for the meal in its full meaning of table fellowship and free and disinterested conversation. It is one of the permanent sources of renewal for humanity, which is totally anemic today.

(Free translation from the Spanish provided by Anne Fullerton. Done in Arlington, VA in cooperation with Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas.)