Every Christmas, an Englishman prepared a festive dinner for his friends and neighbors. Once as the festive date was drawing near he sent a messenger to deliver the invitations.
As the messenger was returning home he sat down in a churchyard on a grave. As he had rested and stood up, he said, “I wish God in his mercy would allow that the dead man who rests here could find as much happiness and pleasure at my master’s dinner as I have found here at his grave.” With that, he went back home.
When the dinner was about to begin and everyone had taken their places, an unknown man, pale of face, came in and sat with the rest at the table. He neither drank nor ate and didn’t show any sign of the festive nature of the gathering. But when the dinner had ended and the table prayer was spoken, he began to show joy, which grew even more when the prayer ‘de profundis’ (Psalm 130) was reached.
He was then asked who he was. “I am the dead man,” he answered, “for whom the master’s messenger wished that I could find as much pleasure as he found on my grave. To me, neither food nor drink is pleasing, but rather as you delight on food and drink so do we Christian souls with pious prayer.”