Excerpt from a recent sermon, "Martha's Table" preached at Ely Cathedral by the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev. John Pritchard.

When I was at Canterbury with your Dean I was once taking the early morning eucharist and standing by at the end of the service to say goodbye. An American visitor came up to me and said, 'I haven't been to that service for 30 years.' I wasn't sure what to say, so I just said, 'Welcome home.' 'That's exactly it,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. Something special happened to that man at that table that day.

With Jesus the ordinary table becomes the holy table, and your life and mine – ordinary lives – become holy lives. When we come to Communion we aren't coming to eat a piece of bread and drink a little wine. We're coming to be transformed, to be made a little more like Christ.

The offer – you might say – is still on the table.