All are welcomed.

Thank you to Bryan Cones for the excellent and timely January Examined Life ("Guess who's not coming to dinner").

My 91-year-old mother died Nov. 25, 2006. We knew her funeral would be attended by a mixed array of folks who visited our parents' home and ate at their table over the years. Theirs was a table that had a place for everyone.

I simply cannot imagine my loving, compassionate mother turning away anyone from her table who was hungry. Ours was a home where extra plates were plentiful, and folding chairs awaited unexpected dinner guests. I like to think of it as a eucharistic home in the truest sense.

It was only natural, then, that mom's funeral included the phrase: "All are welcome to come to the eucharistic table."

And so they came: Catholics who use birth control. Family and friends who are divorced or living together without being married. Folks raised as Catholics who no longer go to church. A healthy sprinkling of Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and a host of other faith-filled people that the keepers of the tabernacle key say should have remained in their pews. I dared to receive Communion at my mother's funeral myself, even though I don't fully agree with all papal teachings and have openly dissented from some--a fact that made my mother proud.

The issue about eucharistic inclusion should not be about rules well kept or beliefs that merit the magisterial seal of approval. It should be about a gnawing hunger in the soul, about a deep desire to be part of the great human family that comes together to pray, to sing, to weep, to grieve, to remember that not one of us is so worthy as to judge others, and to be nourished in the experience.

I wish that those who have restricted the guest list for Communion would have met my mother.

Fran Ferder, F.S.P.A.

Seattle, Wash.