I have a dear friend who tends to react rather intensely.1 So when people cut her off in traffic or beat her in a volleyball game or just have ugly pants on, she tries really hard not to hate them. She grits her teeth, clenches her fist, and mutters, “I Christian love that woman.” Meaning, of course, “I desire what is best for her and want her to be happy for eternity with Christ but I seriously hope she’s on the other side of heaven from me or I might hit her over the head with my harp!”
I suppose it could be worse….
Obviously, it’s a joke. But I think the world’s understanding of Christian love is just as messed up. People who watch Fred Phelps protests on TV see Christian “love” as a mask for hatred and judgment, as in “I am filled with Christ’s love!”
A candlelight vigil against Lady Gaga? How did I miss this?
See, we claim to worship a God of love, but really we’re just sugarcoating our condemnation club. “God loves me!” we croon, accompanied by mediocre rhythm guitar. “But he hates gays and feminists and liberals and evolution scientists and My Little Ponies and chewing gum!”
Or they assume instead that God being love means that we can do whatever we want. “God loves everybody. He accepts everybody. Just because you do bad things doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. There aren’t really bad things anyway. It’s all relative.”
We’ll call it “Care Bear Christianity.”
Tell that to the Pharisees that Jesus called “whitewashed tombs” and a “brood of vipers.” I don’t think his love was just happy feel-good love. I think it challenged people’s actions while loving them, broken as they are.
So it’s complicated, this “Christian love.” It’s not condemnation but it’s not complacency, either. It’s unconditional but it won’t leave you in your sin. Let me tell you what I mean when I say I Christian love you.
I love you. Completely and entirely. I don’t care who you are or where you’re from. I don’t care about your race or class or level of education. I love you if you’re inconvenient or homeless or disabled or needy or loud or ugly or stupid or way too smart for your own good. I love you so much I don’t even put those labels on you. I just love you.
I know you sin, but I probably don’t spend much time thinking about it. Even if I do, I don’t love you any the less for it. It doesn’t change how much I love you if you’re gay or contracepting or a drunk or fallen away from the faith or a gossip or wanted for tax evasion. I don’t think of you as “my atheist friend” or “my cafeteria Catholic friend” or “the object of my evangelization.” That’s not who you are. You’re Katie or Mike or Ben or Julie and I love you despite or through or because of your issues. Because that’s what it means to be a Christian: to love. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). If I don’t love you, I don’t love God. Period.
Because I Christian love you, I won’t allow your sin to define you in my mind. Everybody sins. Everybody I love is caught up in some struggle with evil. Some fight harder than others, but we’re all attached to some sin. I won’t say I don’t care how you sin. Because I love you, I care. Because I want what’s best for you, your personal life is my business. It hurts me to watch you hurt yourself and God. But I will try my best only to love you more the more you sin.
When I say I Christian love you, I mean I don’t judge you. I don’t know the state of your soul or your relationship with God. But I’m not just going to pretend we’re all okay here. I will judge actions. My loving you doesn’t make your behavior okay. And because I love you, I may say something. When I say certain behavior is wrong, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t even necessarily mean you’re sinning.2 I can’t know the state of your soul. So please know that if I’m opposed to something you do, it doesn’t change my love for you.
It didn’t change his love for me.
But you know, I may not say something. I may live to show you what I believe is right and keep my lips sealed so you don’t feel judged.3 Because when I say I Christian love you, it means that I know that I’m a sinner. I’ve been given so much. I want to love you the way I’ve been loved. I’m not going to pretend that I’m okay with what you do, but I will not let it change the way I love you. I will hope and pray that you learn to let God love you and that you’re brought to his truth. But I know that that’s not my job. My job is to see in you the beautiful child of God that captivates his heart. My job is to love.
I will not be your savior. I will not be your judge. I will not be your everything. I will be your friend and walk with you.
I’m going to mess up. I’m going to judge you and I’m going to try to convert you and I’m going to ignore you or get annoyed by you. That’s because my love is a pale imitation of real Christian love:
But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 Jn 3:16)
But I’m going to try with everything I am to love you the way you deserve to be loved.
When I say I Christian love you, I mean that I’m going to need forgiveness. I’m going to need you to accept my brokenness the way I try to accept yours. You might not be a Christian, but I’m going to ask you to Christian love me back, to love without condemnation or complacency. I need you to love me as I am but challenge me to be better. Otherwise, what’s the point?
So I make you this promise, as a Christian. I will do everything I can to serve you and embrace you as you are. I will fight not to judge you or look down on you. I will recognize the ways you are so, so much better than me. I will try every day to lay down my life for you, to forgive you and accept you and challenge you. I will pray for you. That’s a promise, not a threat.
I’m so sorry that my love doesn’t look more like his. I’m trying.
For something to be a mortal sin, it has to be seriously wrong, you have to know it’s wrong, and you have to choose to do it anyway (grave matter, knowledge, full consent of the will). Observers can judge the first element, but we can’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really knew something was wrong and that you freely chose it. [↩]
**This post gives some helpful rules to gauge whether to speak up or not. [↩]
I am not going to do that. Is it bad that I just wrote all about trusting God completely and then drew a line in the sand that I refuse to cross?
But I wanted to be a PRINCESS!!
But I don’t feel guilty about this–not one bit. Which is pretty good for someone who tends to be a bit (a lot) scrupulous. I was tempted to feel like a jerk when I first saw the article. “Oh, man,” I thought, “Now I have to do that.” With a sigh because gosh this surrender thing is just so hard and why do I have to do all the hardest things?
And then I remembered that I don’t. In this instance, because it would be absolutely imprudent for a woman to live on the street and rely entirely on the kindness of others. Sure, God could call me to that. But I’m open and I’ve prayed and I just don’t think he is. And I don’t have to feel bad that he’s letting me have a car and a checking account–it’s his plan, not mine. I don’t have to be the very most appallingly surrendered to Divine Providence to be surrendered.
But there are always people to compare myself to. How about this one:
Have you heard about this girl? That’s Katie Davis. She’s 21. Those are her 13 daughters.
Right?
Seriously, read her entire blog. I’ll wait.
I ran across her story and thought, “Wow. What faith. How beautiful. DEAR GOD PLEASE PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THAT!!!!”
I know, and yesterday I sounded all surrendered to God’s will, right?
But here’s the thing: God desires your joy. Not just in heaven (although that’s his top priority), but here on earth, too. He wants you to love your career and your family and your vocation. Yeah, you’re going to suffer along the way. Some of the time it may seem as though all it is is suffering. But that’s because he’s not willing to trade your eternal joy for temporal comfort. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?” There’s a reason for the suffering–because he wants you to be happy.
We tend to look at the examples of the long-suffering Saints and think that whatever is hardest and least appealing in life is probably what God wants for us. Just think about how we glorify the martyrs. “Yeah, he got burned alive. But that guy had his fingers bitten off! And that guy was flayed alive! Ooh, and she’s not a martyr, but she used to rub pepper and lye into her skin to make herself ugly and I bet that really hurt!” We glory in their willingness to suffer for Christ and forget that not everyone is called down the path of bloodiest resistance.
Hacked to pieces AND burned alive? Some guys get all the breaks.
You’ve got to remember, friends, that God loves you–truly, madly, deeply, to borrow the words of Savage Garden. He’s not planning out a miserable, painful path to heaven. Really, he’s planning a life that you’ll love. And he created your heart to desire the things he has for you.
Unfortunately, that desire is often coated in a lot of worthless junk that we’ve piled on ourselves. Which means that just because you want something doesn’t mean that’s God’s will. But it does mean that if something sounds terrible and awful and has absolutely no appeal for you because it’s just the worst thing there’s ever been in the history of ever, you can probably leave it alone for a while. Be open and maybe reconsider down the road but don’t assume that because something sounds terrible it must be what you have to do because Jesus died on the cross and so Christianity must be really, really miserable.
I guess the question you have to ask is does this sound horrible because you’re scared and running away from something or does it sound horrible because it’s just not what you were made for? You have to get past your attachment to sin and figure out what’s really going on.
I kind of look like this when I run. Only female, soaked with sweat, and mostly dead.
See, to me, running a marathon sounds like torture. Then death. Then hell. Then being reanimated to suffer it all again. To this guy, it sounds hard (okay, maybe nothing’s hard for him) but not miserable. On the other hand, if you ask me to spend a week–24-7–with teenagers, I’m psyched. I know it’ll be exhausting and hard and probably smelly, but it’s a life-giving kind of hard. And that’s the real difference–does this profession or vocation or promotion or relocation or whatever inspire me? does it make me want to keep going, even when it’s hard? Or do I feel defeated and empty just thinking about it?
What I’m saying is don’t assume something’s “the right thing” just because it’s hard. We aren’t all called to be beggars or run orphanages. But don’t assume it’s “the wrong thing” because it’s hard, either. Anything worth doing is hard. You just have to ask if it’s the kind of hard that makes you want to keep pushing or the kind of hard that makes you want to curl up and die. It’s not that simple all the time, but that’s a good litmus test.
We’re all called to be saints, but we’re not all going to be Saints. You don’t have to be some kind of miracle-working, leper-washing, hair-shirt-wearing superstar to be pleasing to God. And sometimes “trusting God” is code for showing off. If it’s his will, he’ll give you the grace for it, no matter how hard it is. If it’s not, the easy life you’ve got planned might just go all Jumanji on you.
This is not what I meant by a "board game." Ha. Punny.
So I’m not going to join Andrew in his radical poverty (yet). But I’m not saying you shouldn’t. Go ahead and pray on it. Just remember: unless it’s God’s will, doing something crazy doesn’t make you a saint. It just makes you crazy.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I recently packed everything I own into the trunk of my Mazda3 (okay, my mattress pad is in the back seat), waved goodbye to Kansas after a 2 year exile in the flatlands, and headed out to God knows where. I left a job and friends and great students to do…well…I’m not exactly sure what. I know what I’m expecting (speaking and retreats and blogging and whatnot), but all I know for sure is that God asked me to leave and that he’ll take care of the rest. No home, no job. For the time being, I’m living out of the car.*
It’s interesting the kind of reactions I get to this.
Non-religious person: “Oh–wow! That’s really…” stupid? “um…” crazy? “um…great that you’re going to…find yourself. What a wonderful journey.” At which point I feel like a flake and a cliché.
This is totally what prayer does to you.
Nominal Christian: “Oh–wow! That’s amazing! I could never trust God like that. You’re really an inspiration. What a wonderful journey.” At which point I feel like a fake and a fanatic.
Holy Christian: “Nice. I’ll pray for you.” At which point I’m disappointed that they’re not more impressed. (But relieved that they didn’t use the word journey, which is probably my least favorite word in the English language. This might be because every episode of The Bachelor–don’t judge me–uses that word at least 35 times. My sister and I toyed with the idea of a drinking game involving the word “journey” on The Bachelor but decided that even doing it with water might kill us.)
Because this is how you find true love.
This weekend, I got to catch up with a bunch of old friends at Fr. Tom’s ordination and had the humbling experience of repeatedly being asked, “So what are you up to these days?”
It was a real flash back to the last time I had no answer to this question, right after leaving the convent. People kept asking me what I did and I kept having to swallow my pride and tell them I was nannying for my sister’s baby. For a type A fool like me, that was hard. Especially when I saw the look in people’s eyes wondering what on earth I thought I was doing shelling out for a Notre Dame degree (or two) and then living on someone’s futon and working for free.
This weekend, it was much the same. “Well, I just left Kansas…” I’d say.
“Oh, and where are you going now?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know.”
“Oh….”
One kind soul said, “Oh, that’s all right. You’ll figure it out eventually.”
“No!” I couldn’t help responding. “I had it figured out. And it was all great. God just had something better.”
A better woman would have bit her tongue and allowed the world to see her as aimless and flaky. I’m too proud for that. So I explain it all.
“You see, I was teaching. But then I felt that God was calling me to step out on faith and leave that. He asked me to be homeless and unemployed and I had to trust him. So I’m going to be traveling and speaking and blogging and writing a book and I think it’s going to be really great.”
Which, of course, is code for “I’m really holy and trust God a lot and by the way you should invite me to come speak at your church/school/ministry.”
And Christians are suitably impressed and non-Christians are suitably disturbed (which is generally how my life goes) and look at me I’m preaching the Gospel and everyone knows how awesome I am!
Here’s the thing, though: there’s nothing impressive about this.
No, really. That’s not humility (I don’t do humility, more’s the pity). It’s just fact. I serve a God who made the mountains and moves them when he wants, a God who made the sea and the storm and then walked on the waves and calmed them, a God who heals lepers and the blind. My God sent his Son to die for me–why wouldn’t he give me everything I need? (That’s a little Romans 8:32 for you.) What’s scary about living out of my car with a credit card and savings and a bunch of couches to crash on when God provides for people who don’t even take a second tunic?
So when I give everything away and quit my job without any particular destination in mind (which has happened twice now), it’s not so much faithful as smart. You see, somewhere in my 28 years, I figured out that, despite all the impressive things I can put on my resume, I’m actually quite dumb. In everything that matters, anyway. I can’t seem to get past myself enough to see what’s best for me. I spent a good 10 years pining away for a man–any man–before God knocked me over the head to show me something that fits me so much better. I hated myself for most of college because I couldn’t figure out how to stop being me and start being that quiet, pious girl in the chapel. It didn’t occur to me that maybe I was actually made to be me, loud and obnoxious and awkward as I am, that perhaps God actually made me that way because he wanted me that way, not so that I had something to overcome.
You see, I can barely even see who I am now and what I want today, let alone who I was made to be and what I’ll need to be that person. And I’ve fought God and just come out the other side tired and unhappy (and in need of a good confession). But when I’m abandoned to his will–as much as I’ve ever managed to be–there’s something energizing about that. Oh, there’s still suffering. Often there’s more suffering in following God than there is when you turn your back on him. But there’s meaning to that suffering, and purpose, and healing.
And God starts taking care of all the details and mapping out your life for you, with lovely morning greetings like this:
If only God communicated through greeting cards....
Okay, no, it’s not that easy. You’ve still got to discern and, usually, make money and pay bills and work hard. But ultimately, it’s on him. He’s made you that promise: that he will provide. Your job is to pray and love and fight for holiness and never, never to worry.
Believe me when I say this isn’t going to make life easy. Trying to do God’s will–letting go of your own understanding of who you are and surrendering to his truth–is about as hard as it comes. Obedience isn’t easy; but it’s simple. It’s a matter of choosing truth, goodness, and beauty, even at the expense of yourself.
I’m not talking here about how to figure out God’s will. That can be widely different for each person and in each situation (although I talked a little bit about my journey (gag) here). I’m talking about those times when we know what God is calling us to. Maybe that’s obvious stuff like getting help with your porn problem or getting to Mass on Sunday or carrying on a civil conversation with your stepmother. Maybe it’s a matter that took some real discernment like entering religious life, leaving a job, or ending an unhealthy relationship. Maybe it’s something that you’re not sure yet about but it just keeps nagging at you.
I’m sure most of us right now have something that we really know, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have to do–some change of behavior or major or job or marital status or attitude or diet. Stepping out like that does take faith. But I’m telling you that God always comes through. Always. That’s just who he is. It’s not a matter of learning to trust that he’ll give you what you want–God forbid he should give us what we want! It’s a matter of learning to trust that ultimately–ultimately, not immediately–he’ll bring us to a joy so deep any struggles we may have on the way will pale in comparison.
It doesn’t always seem to make sense. God told Abraham to leave his family and country–and Abraham went. Jesus asked a bunch of fishermen to leave their nets and their boats and their father and go change the world. And they didn’t hem and haw and finish college or build up their savings or wait till the kids were grown first. Immediately they went, Scripture says. At once they left it all behind. Even though they had no idea what he was asking them to do.
But there’s a freedom in that obedience. The freedom of living in God’s will. Freedom from regret or doubt or (eventually and God willing) fear. More importantly, there’s the freedom you give to God to bless you beyond your wildest imaginings. That might be through opportunities he could only give you when you followed him; it might be through the joy of life lived in grace; if might just be through the growth in holiness that comes from following him. Whatever it is, he can’t give it to you (yes, I just said God can’t) until you surrender to him.
If you fix your eyes on Jesus, you can walk on water. So forget your fears and your attachments and your plans and your will and just get off the boat. Maybe you’ll sink. If you do, he’ll catch you. But if you don’t–oh, friend, imagine!
If you’re up for it, I’d love to hear in the comments about what God is calling you to abandon to him. It’ll help me to pray for you 🙂
*I’m actually writing this from the passenger seat of my sister’s car, sitting in the library parking lot using their wireless as my super-ornery niece finally naps in her car seat. I tried books and songs and prayers and pajamas in the middle of the day and lunch and that awkward bend-over-her-stroking-her-back-while-singing-praying-to-God-she-finally-falls-asleep-in-her-crib move and putting John Paul down for his nap in the same room and she just alternated between sobbing in her crib or playing happily out of it. So my sister’s watching John Paul and Cecilia and I are depleting the ozone layer running the engine so we don’t die of heat in this car. In case you wanted to know the inspiration of this post which started off being about living out of my car but doesn’t really seem to be anymore.
I was blessed yesterday to attend the priestly ordination of a friend, a good man whose life is already a great gift to the Church. I’m headed out soon to go to his first Mass (and I went to confession yesterday so I can get the indulgence–ftw).
Throughout the ordination Mass, watching countless young, smiling Arlington priests (and the three added to their number) and reflecting on the gift of the priesthood, I was overwhelmed by gratitude.
I love the priesthood. I love the collar and the service and the sacrifice and the Sacraments and all the blessings the priesthood provides. I seriously get giggly when I meet seminarians–I’m just so excited for them! This year, in an attempt to spread my giddy love of our Fathers, I made seminarian trading cards and handed them out to my students to get them praying for future priests. I’m not kidding–I freaking love priests.
And so, to all priests, I want to say thank you.
Deacons lie prostrate in a sign of submission to God and his church during the ordination Mass (somewhere awesome with a million vocations--anyone know where?)
Thank you for laying down your lives for Christ and his Church, for giving up your lives to help us get through ours. Thank you for your obedience, for showing us what it means to submit. Thank you for the gift of your celibacy, for giving up wife and children for your Bride the Church and your many children. Thank you for washing our feet, for loving us even when we abuse you. Thank you for coming into the parishes that were “just fine before he came along” and bearing with us.
Thank you for being on call 24 hours a day. Thank you for showing up in the hospital room 20 minutes after he called the parish for prayers. Thank you for talking to her when you found her crying in the back pew instead of just asking her to leave so you could lock up. Thanking you for being at the morgue, the jail, the courthouse, and everywhere we needed you and no other. Thank you for your counsel. Thank you for your silence. Thank you for being there even if we hardly knew you.
Thank you for loving us even when we take you for granted. Thank you for standing outside Mass every Sunday shaking hands with people who don’t bother to learn your name. Thank you for remembering my name. Thank you for caring who I am and what I do. Thank you for smiling when babies scream in Mass. Thank you for laughing and drinking beer and playing golf and just being a man instead of a plaster cast of a priest.
Thank you for loving our children. Thank you for speaking to the first communicants even if you have no idea how to teach seven-year-olds. Thank you for laughing at yourself when that was apparent. Thank you for children’s homilies and skits at Bible school and altar server retreats. Thank you for the example you set to our sons of what it means to follow Christ with abandon. Thank you for making them love the priesthood.
Thank you for refusing to be overcome by the world’s hatred. Thank you for putting your collar back on and standing as a target. Thank you for continuing to love your people even when they began to hate you because of the evil actions of a few who turned their backs on their call.
Thank you for loving youth. Thank you for wearing your roman collar under your tie-dyed youth group t-shirt. Thank you for playing ultimate frisbee in your cassock. Thank you for showing the girls that there are men who will fight to be chaste. Thank you for showing the boys that that’s what it means to be a man. Thank you for the example of a life lived for a purpose.
A Franciscan Friar of the Renewal (I'm pretty sure they all skateboard or rap or something)
Thank you for the Sacraments. Oh, thank you, thank you for the Sacraments!
Thank you for confession. Thank you for sitting in an empty confessional for hours hoping someone will walk in to be reunited to God. Thank you for hearing my confession at 7 am because I couldn’t be bothered to make it to church during scheduled confessions. Thank you for listening, for never judging. Thank you for reassuring us that there’s nothing too big for God’s mercy. Thank you for knowing when I was too broken even to say my own penance and for offering to say it for me. Thank you for taking our shameful secrets to your grave. Thank you for hurting with us and hurting for us and wanting us in heaven so badly.
Mass in a ruined church during WWII
Thank you for saying Mass every day–even when I’m the only one there, day in and day out, for 2 months. Thank you for bringing the Eucharist to the sick. Thank you for exposing the Blessed Sacrament for adoration, even when youth ministers ask you to come do it at midnight. Thank you for the sacrifices you make to bring us the Holy Sacrifice.
Thank you for homilies that make me proud to be a Catholic. Thank you for homilies that remind me that the Mass is about the Eucharist, not the works of man. Thank you for consecrating the Eucharist so reverently that it moves me to tears. Thank you for the intensity of your worship and the love in your eyes when you look at your people and when you look at your God.
Thank you for praying over us and praying with us and praying for us. Thank you for your private faithfulness to prayer, to the Office and the Mass, to your own confessions and rosaries and fasting. Thank you for fighting every day to be men worthy of the call.
Thank you for preaching Christ to us, for bringing Christ to us, for being Christ to us. Thank you for putting out into the deep. Thank you for following him, never knowing where he will lead you. Thank you for teaching us to trust, for teaching us to love, for teaching us to live.
Dear Fathers, I pray for you every day. I am so thankful for your sacrifice and your ministry and your love. Please know that, whatever the world hurls at you, you are loved in return, by your flock and, most importantly, by your Shepherd.
As I walked my nephew through his prayers last night, we enjoyed the following exchange:
Me: Can you tell God how great he is? What did Jesus do that was great?
John Paul: He took bwead and wine and tuwned it into his body and bwood!
I swear I’m not making this up. Completely unaware of tomorrow’s feast (or my epic series of Eucharistposts), the one event from the life of Christ that struck my 2-year-old nephew as awesome was the institution of the Eucharist.
Yes, I’m taking notes for the hagiography.
Just so everybody knows that his theology’s sound, John Paul has also been known to stop playing, look up, and say, “Thank you fow Jesus fow dying fow me!” He’s a little preposition happy at the moment.
But he’s on the right track. Somehow, his little child’s mind gets that the Eucharist is just as essential as the Passion. In fact, it’s an extension of the Passion.
Behold the Lamb of God
I’m sure everyone reading this knows that the Passover is a type (a foreshadowing) of the Passion. But bear with me here (And turn to Exodus 12 if this is news). In order to save his people from slavery to Egypt (sin), God ordered them to take an unblemished lamb (sinless Lamb of God) and slaughter it (crucify him) at twilight (during an eclipse). He ordered that not a bone of it be broken (Jn 19:36) and that the Israelites anoint their doorposts with its blood (be baptized and saved by the blood of the Lamb).*
People usually finish drawing the eery parallels there (although can I point out that John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God–sacrificial victim–just before Jesus was baptized, symbolizing his union with sinners and his death? Sweet.) but that’s only the first part of the ritual. Any Jew will tell you that the meat (hehe) of the Passover ritual is the Seder meal. In fact, Exodus spends more time commanding that than it does commanding the sacrifice, going so far as to say that all Israelites must eat the lamb (Ex 12:47–I guess Jewish vegetarians just have to suck it up one day a year).
The Old Testament is engineered intentionally by God to reveal the New in the light of Christ. We start to understand the purpose of the Ark of the Covenant when we look at Mary. We get a sense of worship when we look at the temple (incense, anyone?) and we can’t understand Baptism without the flood and the Red Sea. So what’s with all the sacrifice stuff all over the Pentateuch? And why is it always telling them who was supposed to eat of the sacrifice?
That’s right. Many kinds of sacrifices had to be consumed entirely, others eaten by priests, and some eaten by the one who offered it. The idea was that you offered your best to God, who made it sacred. Some of it went to the priests, some was burned up, but some was given back to you. You then feasted with your family, thanking God for the opportunity to make a sacrifice (now there’s some good theology) and being sanctified by consuming what was holy. The ancient understanding of holiness was that it was contagious. If you touched something unclean, you became unclean; if you touched something holy, you became holy (or got struck dead–2 Sam 6). God called the Israelites to consume their sacrifices so that they might become holy as their heavenly Father is holy. For Ancient Jews, a sacrifice without a meal was incomplete. A Passover without a Seder was sacrilege.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is clearly a Paschal (Passover/Easter) sacrifice; so where’s the meal? Well, he had to go a little out of order, but the Apostles consumed the Lamb of God at the Last Supper, when he offered his body and blood to them under the form of bread and wine. You cannot have the Passion without the Last Supper–you cannot have Christianity without the Eucharist.**
Because for the Israelites, sacrifice was necessary, yes. But the feast was how they shared in that sacrifice. The meal was the source of sanctity for them just as the Eucharist is for us. It’s the source of our faith as well. In John, Peter makes his profession of faith after the bread of life discourse. In Luke, the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize the risen Christ until after he broke open the Scriptures for them (Liturgy of the Word) and then took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them (Lk 24:30). It’s through consuming the Passover Lamb that we are drawn to faith.
And here’s the thing of it: this isn’t just some accident of allegory where we felt as though we had to get all the details right. “Okay, well, there’s something in here about eating it standing up, so let’s nix the altar rails….” No–God created the Passover for the purpose of showing us what the Passion meant–and showing us that it didn’t end on the cross or in the empty tomb or even on Ascension Thursday.
My friends, Jesus loved you too much to spend only 33 years on earth. It wasn’t enough for him to live for you, nor to die, nor even to rise again. He needed to be with you, here for you, every moment of every day.
At the Last Supper, he made this promise: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you (Jn 14:18). This wasn’t a promise made only to his Apostles, merely a promise of the Resurrection. He’d told them about that a half dozen times. They weren’t suddenly going to get it now. No, this was a promise to you that he would offer himself for you not once but eternally.
“I refuse,” he said, as he stared death in the face, “I refuse to leave her. I will come back for her. I will wait for her, weaker than I was on the Cross, poorer than I was in the manger. I will suffer abuse and ridicule, be ignored and profaned, every day for the rest of time rather than leave her. And most days she won’t bother to come see me. And she’ll receive me without a thought about me. And some days–Father, forgive her–she’ll come to me mired in sin. But I will never leave her nor forsake her. I will wait for her in the tabernacle. I will stare at her from the monstrance. I will kiss her as she receives. I will dwell in her heart. I will be borne in her life. I will not leave her.”
The act of receiving is so intimate, this moment at which we accept the love of another person given entirely for us. We the Church walk up the aisle to our groom. When a groom takes his bride to their marriage bed, when they consummate their marriage, they say to one another, “I give myself completely to you forever.” And each time they make love, they renew the covenant of their marriage, making again with their bodies the vows they spoke on their wedding day: I give myself completely to you forever.
As he stretched out his arms on the cross, Jesus said to his bride the Church, “I give myself completely to you forever.” In the person of the priest, he says at each Mass, “This is my body, which will be given up for you”–I give myself completely to you forever. That is the promise of the Eucharist, the sign by which Christ renews his covenant with the Church. It’s an act of marital love, and act of intimacy so profound that it’s called the summit of the Christian life. Jesus, the lover of your soul, is drawing you to himself, giving himself completely to you–not just spiritually but physically–begging that you be captivated by him as he is by you. Begging that you give yourself in return.
Sure, he could do this by sending his Spirit into our heart or stirring up a desire for union with him. But God made us physical and spiritual–he knows that we’re not purely spiritual creatures and we can’t survive on the spirit alone. He gave us the Eucharist as a physical expression of the all-encompassing, life-giving love we were made for. The reality of his presence allows us to give ourselves completely to him as he offers himself completely to us.
This physical reality of the Sacrament touches our hearts in a way that spiritual certainty just can’t. Because it’s real. It’s tangible, it’s physical, and it’s beautiful. A perfect love for Christ would desire to possess him completely–which we do when we receive. A perfect love for Christ would desire to be transformed into him–which we are when we receive. A perfect love for Christ would desire to give ourselves completely to him–which we can when we receive.
Praise God for the gift, the incredible gift of the Eucharist. Here is the one place where you are fully known, loved exactly as you are, and called to be greater. Here is the one place where you are completely accepted by the one person whose acceptance matters. My friends, if you are blessed to be Catholic, please, oh, please learn to love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. You won’t always feel it (Lord knows I don’t) but when you choose to see him with eyes of faith, your life will be transformed. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith. It is our strength to endure and the reason we sing. It is the promise of his love and a foretaste of heaven. It is, quite literally, the meaning of life.
Jesus longs to love you in the Eucharist. Let him.
*Can I just tell you that when this was first explained to me it absolutely blew my mind? I was in high school and I seriously freaked out. I knew Jesus and all, but I had no idea that this Christian thing could be intellectually stimulating. Little did I know….
**Incidentally, this seems to have been Tolkien’s biggest problem with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe; Lewis set up a whole Passion narrative with no Last Supper, a whole Passover with no Seder.
Yesterday’s post (I hope) made it pretty clear that Scripture supports the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. In all things, though, we need to look to Church Tradition as well. 1 Thes 2:13 and 2 Thes 2:15–among many other verses–tell us that we need both Scripture and the inspired Tradition of the Church in order to come to a fuller understanding of our faith. But that’s an argument for another day.
Church Fathers
Suffice it to say that whether or not you believe in the Church’s ability to speak infallibly, it’s hard to argue with the unanimous tradition of the early Church Fathers. After all, these guys were only a few generations removed from Jesus–early in the game of telephone, if you will. It stands to reason that their understanding of the faith has been less corrupted than what it might have become centuries later.
This was the clear understanding of the reformers. Facing an ornate, bureaucratic Church weighed down by what appeared to be the accumulated “traditions of men” (Mark 7:8), Luther and his colleagues sought to go “ad fontes,” to the sources. Their theory was that a Christianity 1500 years removed from Christ couldn’t possibly know what Christ taught unless it looked to the early Christian Church. Now, Luther tended to look at Scripture alone, but his theory seems to indicate that the earliest Christians were almost as reliable.
So when we’re talking about the Eucharist, let’s start with the earliest Christians. If we’ve got a consensus in Scripture and a consensus in the early Church, I don’t think there’s much left to argue.
The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead. -St. Ignatius of Antioch, around 100 AD
As Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. -St. Justin Martyr, around 150 AD
Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature. -St. Ambrose of Milan, 4th century
Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, “This is my blood,” who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood? -St. Cyril of Jerusalem, late 4th century
Cyril asks the exact question here: who, John Calvin, are you to say that Jesus didn’t mean what he said? It seems that Cyril was just making a point, though, not addressing anyone in particular; history tells us of absolutely no mainstream Christian denying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist during his time.
Actually, we have no record of anything of the kind for more than 1000 years after the time of Christ. Berengarius of Tours in 1088 is the first Christian on record as denying that the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Jesus. This idea of a “symbolic” or “spiritual” presence of Jesus was so foreign to the early Church that nobody even considered it for a thousand years and when someone did they branded him a heretic and ran him out of town.
You want to tell me that 1000 years of Christians were all completely wrong on this central mystery of their faith? Doesn’t sound ad fontes to me.
Saints Throughout History
The Saints’ obsession with the Eucharist didn’t stop in the early Church, though. Love of the Blessed Sacrament is a hallmark of sanctity, found in the lives of every Saint we have adequate information on. Here are some highlights:
Material food first changes into the one who eats it, and then, as a consequence, restores to him lost strength and increases his vitality. Spiritual food, on the other hand, changes the person who eats it into itself. Thus the effect proper to this Sacrament is the conversion of a man into Christ, so that he may no longer live, but Christ lives in him; consequently, it has the double effect of restoring the spiritual strength he had lost by his sins and defects, and of increasing the strength of his virtues. -St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th century
I don’t know how many of you are aware of how desperately Catholic Tolkien was, but I hope you see the connection between Aquinas’ understanding of the Eucharist and Tolkien’s description of elven lembas (waybread–viaticum, anyone?).
Can you believe this is just what popped up when I googled lembas?
The lembas had a virtue without which they would long ago have lain down to die. It did not satisfy desire, and at times Sam’s mind was filled with the memories of food, and the longing for simple bread and meats. And yet, this way bread of the Elves had potency that increased as travelers relied upon it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (For more on lembas, check this out.)
I know, right? Here’s St. Francis of Assisi, “the most Christlike man since Christ”:
And just as He appeared before the holy Apostles in true flesh, so now He has us see Him in the Sacred Bread. Looking at Him with the eyes of their flesh, they saw only His Flesh, but regarding Him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that He was God. In like manner, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, let us see and believe firmly that it is His Most Holy Body and Blood, True and Living. (12th century)
Let’s listen to the Little Flower:
Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you–for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart. -St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 19th century
Or her namesake, Mother Teresa of Calcutta:
When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.
You can find tons of these all over the internet because the Saints agree with Christ: this is his body.
Regular Folk
I just couldn’t leave this smorgasbord of quotations on the Eucharist without my very favorites, from regular people (okay, geniuses, but not Saints).
Blaise Pascal, famous for being a philosopher and a mathematician and one of the greatest minds of all time, sums it up quite nicely:
How I hate such foolishness as not believing in the Eucharist! If the Gospel is true, if Jesus Christ is God, where is the difficulty?
Tolkien didn’t stop at allusion when discussing his love of the Eucharist. In a letter to his son, he explained what the love of his life was:
Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament…..There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that.
Twenty years later, his feelings were much the same:
I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it…Out of wickedness and sloth I almost ceased to practice my religion – especially at Leeds, and at 22 Northmoor Road. Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger.
This, friends–this is what it means to be a Catholic. To hunger for the Eucharist, to be enamored of Christ’s body and blood, here present to us at all times, sinners that we are.
I leave you with the words of Flannery O’Connor, an American Catholic author from the early 20th century. She says what we, perhaps, would say: I can’t explain it, but I believe it with everything that I am.
I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, “A Charmed Life.”) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.
Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.
That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.
All the rest of life is expendable.
Tomorrow: Source and Summit and Everything in Between: Why the Eucharist.
A while back, I got up early for Mass one Sunday so that I could join a friend at her church afterwards. Sitting in a run-down old auditorium, I enjoyed some lovely music, some decent preaching and some interesting theology. And then came communion. The worship leader approached a table laden with bread. She began to speak.
“On the night before he suffered, our Lord took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you.'” Then she lifted the bread up for all to see.
Despite the fact that it was a woman in jeans on an auditorium stage, the ceremony was eerily familiar. After she blessed the grape juice, communion ministers distributed bread and wine to those who came forward, saying, “The body of Christ” and “The blood of Christ.”
I sat there stunned–how could they use those words when they didn’t believe them? How could they say “This is my body” when they thought it was a symbol? How could they say “The body of Christ” about something that wasn’t?
And then I realized. They’re just quoting the Bible. And the Bible says it’s his body.
Now, there are a lot of things that Catholics and Protestants disagree on. And while I can use Scripture to defend the Catholic position on every one, I respect that there are generally verses in Scripture to support the Protestant opinion as well. I mean, you can’t read James 2 and come out saying sola fide, but Romans 3 and Romans 10 sure do seem to suggest it. But I really don’t see how anyone could possibly read the Bible and end up with a symbolic understanding of the Eucharist.
I mentioned the Eucharist one time in a class discussion of different Protestant denominations. “Now Shayna’s Pentecostal,” I said, “so she doesn’t believe in the real presence.”
“Yes, I do,” she called out.
“You do?” I asked, confused. “But I thought you were Pentecostal.”
“I am,” she confirmed. “I don’t know what my church says, but in the Bible, Jesus says it’s his true flesh. I’m gonna go with that.”
Exactly.
Typology
God lays the groundwork for the Bread of Life in the Old Testament. Melchizedek (the archetypal priest, traditionally viewed by Jews as being without beginning or end–see Hebrews 7:3) offers a sacrifice of bread and wine in Genesis 14. The Jews are told to eat unleavened bread at the time of the Passover; in subsequent years, it was called matzoh and began to look like this:
When I was little, I used to lick matzoh, pour salt on it, and eat it like a Saltine the size of my face. I've always been quite the gourmand.
From what I can tell, the holes are there to make sure there aren’t large air bubbles that cause the bread to “rise.” Notice that the unleavened bread here is pierced and striped–now look up Isaiah 53:5…I know, right?
And then, of course, the manna in the desert–the bread from heaven that saves God’s people–that Jesus himself associates with the Eucharist in John 6.
John 6
What’s that you say? John 6? Don’t mind if I do.
If you’ve got a Bible handy, do us both a favor and flip to John 6. If not, try this.
Now, John tends to group events intentionally (or, I suppose you could say, Jesus tends to group events intentionally. It’s certainly more evident in John’s Gospel), so we’ll start at the beginning of the chapter: the multiplication of the loaves. Here, Jesus works a miracle with bread in order to feed the hungry. Then, the walking on water, where he works a miracle with his body and is miraculously present where he wasn’t expected to be. Bread miracle, then body miracle. Following me?
Then we’ve got what the New American Bible calls “The Bread of Life Discourse,” possibly because Jesus uses that phrase so much you almost start to wonder if it’s the secret word on Pee-wee’s Playhouse (AAAAAAHHH). This huge lecture explains the Eucharist, a bread=body miracle. See what I did there?
Jesus starts off by pointing out that they’re looking for him because they ate the loaves (v. 26), a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, the source of our faith. Then, in true Johannine irony, they ask him if he can do a miracle just like Moses used to do with bread. Seriously, people? I just did a huge bread miracle yesterday! Don’t any of you pay attention around here?
But Jesus is more patient than I and decided to explain the Eucharist anyway.
“I am the bread of life” (v. 35). Then he says a bunch of other stuff but apparently none of them listen because they’re still stuck on the first line (see v. 41). Apparently, he wasn’t clear enough for them, so he repeats himself:
I am the bread of life. (v. 48)
And again:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. (v. 51)
So his followers started to ask each other:
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (v. 52)
Apparently, they were thinking it sounded a little crazy, that he must be speaking symbolically, because he repeats himself again:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever. (v. 53-58)
I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sound symbolic to me. I mean, maybe “I am the bread of life” one time could be like “I am the vine” and “I am the gate.” But over and over? It doesn’t sound symbolic to me; but let’s imagine that it were. When do we see that symbolic language used by Jews? Psalm 27:2 and Micah 3:2-3. Both times, the symbolic “eat my flesh” means “attack me.” So if Jesus is speaking figuratively here, he’s telling his followers that in order to inherit eternal life, they personally have to beat him. Not just “I have to die for you” but “unless you beat me you have no life within you.” That’s terrible theology.
And starting in verse 54, Jesus stops using the human word for eat and starts using the more graphic word used for animals; it’s really more like gnaw. He tells them over and over to gnaw on his flesh.
So here, he says to them, “I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. No, really, I am the bread of life. Eat my flesh, drink my blood. For real, my flesh is really food. No joke. Eat my flesh, drink my blood, eat my flesh, drink my blood, gnaw on my flesh, slurp my blood, take a bite.”
But he totally meant it symbolically.
"Calm down, Bella. 'I want to suck your blood' is just a line I use."
Some years ago, a friend of mine was at Mass, kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer. If she’s anything like me, she was probably counting the number of states with more vowels than consonants or planning what she would eat for the next 17 meals–anything but focusing on the holy sacrifice. Fortunately, the little boy behind her was paying very close attention.
“Take this, all of you, and eat it,” the priest prayed. “This is my body–”
“Ew, Mom, gross! Let’s get out of here!!” shouted the observant child.
The parishioners, I’m sure, chuckled at the silly boy and went back to making their grocery lists or trying to remember their first grade teachers’ names. Or maybe that’s just me.
But what happened here was huge. This little boy listened for the first time and heard, for the first time, the very same words that the disciples heard so many years ago. The same sentiment that elicited the same response in John 6. In verse 60, they say exactly what that little boy did: ew. Jesus had made it abundantly clear that he was speaking literally here. From what they could tell, he was commanding them to be cannibals. And when they were grossed out, he didn’t explain. He didn’t say, “No, guys, hang on. I meant eat crackers and think about me! I didn’t mean for real eat my body–that’d be nasty!” Instead, he challenges them:
Does this shock you? (v. 61)
In modern terms, “Come at me, bro.”
And, just like the little boy, they can’t handle it. And they leave (v. 66).
Now, if Jesus hadn’t been for real, if he hadn’t actually meant that the Eucharist would be his body and blood, he would have been morally obligated to stop them, right? They’re leaving because they think he wants them to eat his flesh. If he doesn’t, he has to stop them, to explain the symbolism. What does he do?
He. Just. Lets. Them. Leave.
And then he turns to the Twelve. He doesn’t explain further. He just asks them (v. 67), “Are you going, too?” Because he can’t compromise on this. He’s not willing to give up his real presence here with us. He’d rather start over from scratch than give up on this. This is no symbol.
So here, one year before the Passion, at the time of Passover (v. 4), Jesus tells his followers to eat his flesh in the form of bread.
The Last Supper
The following year, Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper, described in all three Synoptic Gospels. Each time the story is told, we see that Jesus makes a special point of gathering for a meal with his Apostles. You’d think he’d focus on his Passion or on their future mission, as he does in John. But no. The last time he’s going to be with them before he dies and he wants to talk about bread.
“So I’m about to die, y’all. I’ve got, like, 2 hours left. I’m just wondering–what’s your favorite kind of bread? I like bagels. You know what I hate? Pumpernickel! I always think it’s chocolate and then EWWWW bitter surprise.”
Sure.
He’s having a Passover meal with them. If he was going for analogy or a symbol, it would have made perfect sense to talk about the lamb that had been sacrificed (or would be sacrificed if you’re following John’s chronology). The unblemished lamb slain to save them–that’s a perfect analogy. But he doesn’t make an analogy. He doesn’t say “This is like my body” or “This represents my body” or “This corresponds to my body” or “My body can be likened to,” the way he does in a dozen parables. There are any number of ways he could have expressed symbolism. Instead, he uses the word “is.” He defines it. In fact, he transubstantiates it. In that moment, he changes it from bread to his body.
This IS my body.
Some argue that “in remembrance of me” means it was symbolic. Honestly, I just don’t see it. Let’s say we always went to Chick Fil-A on Tuesdays and I was moving away to some awful place without Chick Fil-A. If I asked you to get chicken nuggets every Tuesday “in remembrance of me,” would I mean that you should think about chicken in my honor? No! I’d mean you should actually go get the nuggets. (You’re welcome for that, by the way. Those things are delicious.)
1 Corinthians
In case all four Gospels weren’t enough, St. Paul’s got our back on this one, too. Now, remember, Paul wasn’t around for Jesus’ public ministry. So he tends to paraphrase Jesus instead of quoting him exactly. In fact, if you’ve got red letters in your Bible, they show up exactly twice in Paul’s 13 epistles. Once, Paul’s telling about a revelation he had (2 Cor 12:9-10). The other is in 1 Corinthians 11:
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (v. 23-25)
What does this unique instance tell us?
Unlike with every single other thing Jesus said, it’s not just the meaning of Jesus’ teaching that matters; the words themselves are essential. Which means they can’t just be a description of an analogy; they must actually do something.
Paul knows not just the significance of Jesus’ words but the exact words themselves, most likely because he was hearing them recited over and over again at Mass.
Paul goes on to say that anyone who receives unworthily (in a state of sin or disbelief) will be condemned.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. [also translated “to his own condemnation”]
Now if this bread and cup weren’t really Jesus, if the Eucharist were just a reminder of Jesus or a vessel for his spiritual presence, how could misusing it get you damned to hell?
An amazing student once gave me this souvenir from her travels:
Best toy ever.
It’s not really Jesus. Let’s be honest, he’s not even spiritually present here. It’s just a symbol. When I shine it in people’s eyes and shout: “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,” do I mess around to my own condemnation? Of course not.
What about the Bible–it’s not really Jesus, but he’s spiritually present there. When you read the Bible for a lit class and not out of faith, do you analyze to your own condemnation? No, because it’s not the real presence of Christ. We respect it, honor it, revere it, but we don’t worship it.
The Eucharist, though, is the real presence of Christ, not just the symbolic or the spiritual presence. If we receive the Eucharist for the wrong reasons or while in the improper state, we eat and drink to our own condemnation.
Paul wouldn’t damn you for misusing a symbol or a temporary vessel of God’s presence. He only gets that real when it gets that real.
I’ve read the entire Bible 10 times and the Gospels at least 20. I’ve never–not once–encountered a single passage that in any way suggests that the Eucharist is not in fact the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. Scripture is clear unless you want to pull a Clinton and start redefining words. You cannot read John 6 and come away with anything but the real presence–not unless you’re deceiving yourself. If you don’t believe me, turn to the word of God. Read what it says, read what Christ says. Then tell me it’s not his flesh and blood.
“Jesus Christ said over the consecrated elements, “This is my body” you say “No. It is not his body!” Who then am I to believe? I prefer to believe Jesus Christ.”-Bl. Dominic Barberi
Up next: Everybody’s Doing It: Church Tradition on the Eucharist
“John Paul!” I whispered to my 2-year-old nephew as we knelt in the pew after going up to communion (okay, I knelt. He slowly turned in circles saying, “Body! Chwist! Body! Chwist!”) “You should talk to Jesus now. Jesus is in Aunt Sister’s tummy!”
He looked at me variously. “Aunt Sistew,” he said with certainty, “is not pwegnant.”
For a little boy whose mom is pregnant (and whose aunt is pregnant and whose friend’s mom is pregnant and whose mom’s friend is pregnant), the idea that Jesus could be in anybody’s tummy but Mary’s is very strange. (The other day, I asked him if he knew anybody who had a baby in her tummy. “Mawwy!” he cried, ignoring his poor morning-sick mom.)
Now, this little boy understands the Eucharist better than most people I know. “Jesus is in the tabewnacle! You awe going to weceive the body of Chwist! The pwiest is ewevating the chawice!!” He’ssomething else.
But even for him, well-versed as he is in sacramental theology, it’s just a little bizarre to accept that Aunt Sister might actually be eating God. After all, Jesus is a sweet baby in a manger or a bloody man on a cross. But he’s not really in that cracker, right? I mean, not really really?
Really really.
With Corpus Christi coming up on Sunday (or Thursday, if you’re lucky), I figured I had to get eucharistic with y’all. Then I realized that one post on the Eucharist would be prohibitively long. So I’m going to split it up. To start with, I mostly want to define terms.
According to Catholic theology (and the Bible and every single Christian until 1088 and the vast majority since), the Eucharist is actually Jesus. Not a symbol. Not a reminder. It’s not bread, not wine. Jesus. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. So don’t ask me about the wine I drank at Mass. Unless I tackled the priest and started chugging from the cruet before the consecration, I didn’t drink any wine.
This is the part where intelligent non-Catholics (and, to be honest, many intelligent Catholics as well) start looking at me patronisingly. “Oh, sweetheart,” their superior eyes seem to say. “Well, that’s just not reasonable. I mean, if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, feels like a duck, and its well-rendered fat just melts in your mouth, it’s a duck.”
Then I get all defensive about my IQ and start using ridiculous words like Aristotelian so that everyone knows I’m smarter than them.
Really, though, Aristotle is where it’s at. According to Aquinas, anyway, and that dude actually is a lot smarter than me.
Apparently so smart it made his face hurt.
In Aristotle’s understanding of the nature of things, all physical objects have substance and accidents. Substance is what a thing is, its essence. Accidents are the characteristics of a thing. For example:
If I had had this getup as a child, I would absolutely have worn the wrist braces to school as a fashion statement.
Accidents of the skates: pink, plastic, small, wheeled; substance: accident waiting to happen (apparently the manufacturer agrees–look at all the protective gear she’s wearing!)
Accidents sometimes fake you out, too. Seeing isn’t always believing, as they say. For example:
Accidents: green, spiky, delicious; substance: CAKE!! No kidding, click the picture to check it out.
Now we’re used to the idea of a transformation–where the accidents change but the substance remains the same. Think pretty much any 90s teen movie. You know, where the cool guy gets dared to go out with the pretty “nerd” with glasses and frizzy hair and she takes off her glasses and straightens her hair and we’re all supposed to be like “Oh my gosh, she was, like, totally pretty all along but nobody knew it because glasses made her so ugly!” And then she learns how she can be pretty and still be herself because her substance hasn’t changed, just her accidents. Aquinas in the guise of Rachael Leigh Cook.
Or how about Bob the Caterpillar:
Accidents: green, spotted, tubular, many-legged; substance: Bob
So Bob’s done the caterpillar thing and he’s starting to feel the urge to move on to bigger and better things. He spins himself a cocoon, metamorphoses for a while, and comes out a beautiful butterfly:
If I ever saw a butterfly like this, I think I would probably die of joy. On a related note, the other day a butterfly landed directly in my path and died. Good thing I don’t believe in omens….
Accidents: pink, sparkly, amazing, probably able to turn into a unicorn; substance: Bob (poor Bob)
In a transformation, the accidents change, but the substance remains the same.
The Catholic understanding of transubstantiation is exactly the opposite: the substance changes but the accidents remain the same. Like in Freaky Friday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wKt7z3iWwc
Here they are after the switch:
On the left, we have the accidents of old, tall, short hair, wrinkles.* But her substance is Anna. On the right, we have Anna’s accidents: short, slim, stringy hair, purple nail polish. But her substance is Mom. Their substances have changed, but their accidents have remained the same. The woman on the right looks like Anna, sounds like Anna, smells like Anna, feels like Anna (remember the butt grab?), tastes like Anna…. But she’s not Anna–she’s mom.
Now, I use this example and people tend to resume the condescension they were heaping on me before I started talking Aristotle. Look, I get that the “transubstantiation” in this movie is magic. I am aware that nothing like this happens in nature. Absolutely: transubstantiation is a miracle. When we claim that this takes place at every Mass, we’re not denying that it’s impossible. We’re just saying that God does the impossible. Like, you know, creating ex nihilo, impregnating a virgin, becoming man, rising from the dead. Pretending to be a cracker? NBD.
Little kids understand this better than anyone. Most of them won’t understand substance and accidents, so when I explain it to them, I tell them it’s magic. They nod, wide-eyed, and kneel to worship while adults debate whether a thing’s characteristics are integral to its essence. In a lot of ways, it seems, “magic” is the best explanation we can give. It acknowledges that it’s real, that it’s beyond our power to understand, and that it’s a gift.
Here, in this religion that doesn’t claim to be governed solely by natural laws, it’s absolutely reasonable to accept Jesus at his word even when it sounds a little crazy. That “duck” my imaginary supercilious friends brought up? What if it’s a really sophisticated robot? Or some non-anatine** alien life form? Or a hologram capable of communicating with your brain to convince it that it’s feeling and tasting and smelling?
Okay, fine. But here’s what I’m saying: we’re not ignoring the fact of the accidents. The host still looks, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds like a cracker. It can still trigger a gluten sensitivity. You can get drunk off the precious blood. We know this.
We also know that Jesus said, “This is my body. This is my blood. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” When the most powerful magician since the dawn of time tells you he’s going to work some magic, you go with it. In the light of everything else he’s done, it just doesn’t seem that far-fetched. And when the greatest minds since the dawn of time think it’s logical, you breathe a sigh of relief that you’re not pushing 30 and basing your life around some unfounded belief in magic.
When it comes down to it, I just think I’d rather rejoice in the wonder of it all, like a child in awe of the magic of transubstantiation who kneels before you to worship the God you’ve received, than smile skeptically at the folly of these credulous believers. I’ve been on both sides–it’s better over here.
Up next: The Eucharist in Scripture (or: It Depends on Your Definition of the Word “Is”)
*I always feel so bad for Jamie Lee Curtis when I do this. The woman looks better at 60 than I ever have!
I was once, when I was about 21, at an Episcopalian picnic. I’m not exactly sure how these things happen to me. But I popped my collar and played croquet and sat around smiling politely and keeping my mouth shut on religion and politics for almost the whole day.
Then some guy asked me, “Do you know why I love being Episcopalian?”
And again, I kept my mouth shut. Decades off of purgatory for that one.
“Because Episcopalians can believe whatever they want,” he said. Like that was a good thing!
Don’t say anything, I said to myself. It is RUDE to talk about religion at a party, I said to myself. It’s not fair to start arguing with this poor man, I said to myself. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s getting himself into, I said to myself. Bite your tongue!!
But I was young and self-righteous and so very educated and, much as I tried, I just couldn’t let that one slide.
“Well, there are some things you have to believe, right?” I said sweetly. My plan, of course, was to point out that in order to be a Christian one had to believe in the divinity of Christ. Then I would establish the principle of non-contradiction,1 point out that either the Eucharist is God or not God, expose the inherent flaws in Episcopalianism, and BAM! make a new convert. Because I am that good. And it’s all about me.
“Like what?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, either Jesus is God or he’s not, right? He can’t be both.”
“Why does it have to be so black and white? Why can’t it just be gray?” When I tell this story, he starts sounding like a stoner right about here.
“WHAT?” I shouted, genuinely shocked that anyone would say something that illogical.
“Well, he’s God now,” he continued. “But he wasn’t always God.”
“Oh! Well you’re not a Christian at all,” I said with a smile, glad we had figured that out. Of course, with claim like the one he’d just made he was an Arian or an Adoptionist or maybe a Mormon, but certainly not a Trinitarian Christian.
Turns out people take offense at that kind of statement.
The conversation (if it merits the title) continued for two hours, with me pulling out Scripture and ancient prayers and him repeatedly dropping a beer can, making some point about truth being demonstrable, I think. It’s funny if I tell it in person. Here, I think, not so much. Suffice it to say that the difference we couldn’t get past, like many people in the first three centuries, was a disagreement over the nature of God.
Whether or not you’re a Christian comes down to this: the Trinity.
It’s hard to care about the Trinity–the doctrine, anyway. We come up with long arguments to explain the Eucharist and buy t-shirts to proclaim our commitment to chastity, but the central mystery of our faith gets little press. Sure, it begins and ends all our prayers (“In the name of the Father…”), but beyond that, nothing. I’d guess that many Catholics can’t even name the three persons of the Trinity. I’ve definitely heard some guess Mary.
Why? Because mystery is awkward. And maybe, for some of us, because it doesn’t make any sense. So we ignore it and hope it’ll go away.
The Trinity is our life’s destiny and greatest longing. -JPII
Our life’s destiny and our greatest longing–and we skim over it, dedicate one Sunday to it, and move on! Or we mutter “One person in three gods…or in three persons…something about how one equals three…well, it’s a mystery, so you’ll never understand it anyway.” I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pathetic.
The Trinitarian Shield
Well, that clears everything up, doesn’t it?
When we use the word Trinity,2 we mean one God in three persons, distinct but not separate. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all possess the one divine nature, each possessing it fully. Yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.
We’re not saying 1 = 3. We’re saying label your terms. 1 yard = 3 feet. 1 nature = 3 persons. This is not illogical. Supra-logical, perhaps. Beyond our reason but not contrary to it.
Think of it this way: God is like H2O (bear with me here).
But H2O exists in three phases: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam). Ice is fully H2O, water is fully H2O, and steam is fully H2O. But ice is not water and water is not steam and–okay, you get it.
Or, for those who are more musical than scientific, try this on for size:
Ignore the fact that middle C is doubled. Or pretend it has something to do with the hypostatic union.
Each of these notes is C–ask any musician. Gentlemen, sing a low C to a child and he will echo the note a few octaves up. They’re the same. And yet they’re not. High C has a frequency of 512 hz, middle C 256 hz, and low C 128 hz.3 Distinct but not separate.
Or we could pull a St. Patrick and use the shamrock. One plant, three leaves. (As an aside, a shamrock is St. Patrick’s 3-leaved explanation of the Trinity; a four-leaf clover is a pagan symbol of luck. You’re welcome to tattoo either on your butt, just make sure you pick the one that matches your convictions.)
I’m pretty sure St. Patrick looked a lot like this but with a miter instead of that funny hat. And clearly this picture was taken during Ordinary Time.
I could go on all day, but I think we’d do better to look at the nature of God.
God is love (1 Jn 4:16). But in order to be love, God must have a beloved. He could not be defined as love from all time if he were alone. If that were the case, he would have created us out of need, the need to have an object for his nature. But it is a fundamental truth believed by all monotheists that God does not need us. Peter Kreeft puts it simply: “If God is not Trinity, God is not love.” Because if he is not one God in three persons, he is either an egomaniac, eternally enamored of himself, or pathetically needy, creating an entire universe in order to fulfill the purpose of his being. None of those mesh with the testimony of Scripture.
The Fathers understood it this way: the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the Love between them. They are eternally caught up in loving one another, eternally pouring themselves out as gift for the others.
What this means for us is that God doesn’t just choose to love us–he is love, which means that by his very nature he has to love us. He can’t stop loving us, no matter what we do.
It also means that God himself is community. The fact that we need each other is a manifestation of the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
I think the doctrine of the Trinity is most important, though, because we don’t need to know it. We could be saved just knowing that Jesus came to save us, even if we didn’t understand how he relates eternally to the Father. God chose to reveal himself to us in his depths as Trinity not because he had to but because he wanted to.
Frank Sheed says (and really, just go read the whole chapter–it’s brilliant):
The revelation of the Trinity was in one sense an even more certain proof than Calvary that God loves mankind. To accept it politely and think no more of it is an insensitiveness beyond comprehension….
It seems natural that a God who is love would go to any lengths to save us (Rom 8:32), even dying for us. But to love us enough to reveal his inner workings–that’s extreme. I’d throw myself in front of a bus for a lot of people, but I’m much more hesitant to share my heart.
When we talk about the Trinity, we don’t mean some dry theology, drawing artificial distinctions between “person” and “nature” and calling everyone a heretic. We mean that God himself loved you so much that he wanted to reveal himself to you, a gesture so intimate it’s generally reserved for the marital embrace (in a perfect world). He wanted to be known by you–fully known and embraced.
Yes, it’s a mystery. Gentlemen, on the night you are married, your wife will reveal herself to you. And you will know her more fully and be enraptured by that knowledge. The next morning, she will still be a mystery. Each day of your life, God willing, you will understand her better. But she will never cease to be a mystery. And this mystery isn’t awkward, it’s fascinating, enticing! In our personal lives, we find this alluring. Let’s look at God the same way.
The mystery of the Trinity is an invitation to unveil the beauty of One who loves you unconditionally. Why do you shy away?
A thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time, or X is not equal to not X. That is to say, murder can’t be wrong for you because you think it’s wrong but not wrong for me, because I don’t. Or a doughnut doesn’t become God just because you believe it is. No joke–someone actually made that argument to me once. [↩]
Which, by the way, is nowhere in the Bible and comes to us solely from the Church’s authority, via the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (think Nicene Creed) in 325. What’s that you say about sola scriptura? Oops, turns out you can’t be a Christian without Tradition. [↩]
According to a million places on the internet. [↩]
I once took a class on prayer. It was very interesting, I’m sure, but I still have no idea how to pray. I’ve even taught classes on prayer. I know there are all kinds of distinctions about mental prayer and vocal prayer and contemplative and mystical and meditative and on and on, but in all my many hours of “praying” (by which I generally mean sitting in a chapel talking to myself about things that have little to do with anything spiritual) I’ve only discovered three kinds: saintly prayer, snotty prayer, and boring prayer.
Saintly Prayer
When I speak of saintly prayer, I don’t mean the prayer the Saints generally speak of. That’s often bitter and empty (à la Mother Teresa or John of the Cross). When it’s not, it’s selfless and self-emptying. It’s entirely about God, not about the one who prays. I tell you, friends, I am not there yet.
Although I wouldn’t mind a little ecstasy now and again.
I’m talking here about the prayer that feels good. The kind of prayer where you’ve got something to say and so your holy hour speeds by. The emotional high of singing praise music or the comfort of finding meaning in Scripture that hits you exactly where you are. I hope you’ve all experienced this–some peace, some joy, some answer in prayer. It’s a beautiful thing, a true gift. And for those of us who have felt God in this emotional way, the experience can strengthen us through times of emptiness.
This kind of prayer is nice. It might strengthen your faith or give you a passion for sharing the Gospel. That’s lovely. But emotional highs are candy–they are not daily bread. If your prayer were all lovely and happy and fulfilling, you’d soon stop praying out of love of God and start praying out of love of the feeling of prayer. That’s not virtuous and it’s not love. If prayer is about growing in love for God, it can’t always be fun. There has to be struggle and sacrifice and trudging through months of blah if it’s going to mean anything.
Cherish the gift of prayer that touches your heart and stirs your soul. But don’t seek that in prayer. God made you for something better than thrills.
Snotty Prayer
I was talking with an 18-year-old boy the other day and he started describing his experience from the previous night. It seems he was having a miserable time over a girl and he needed to pray it out. So he walked as far away from his house as he could get, off into the wilds of Kansas corn, and fell to his knees, screaming at God.
“I was sobbing,” he said, “tears pouring out of my eyes, snot running down my face. It was disgusting. And one of the most inspiring moments of my life.”
God didn’t answer his question, the desperate “Why?” he was crying into the night, but he came away comforted anyway. Because that prayer, that desperate, guttural cry to the one who made the universe and holds us in his hand–that prayer reminds us that we’re alive. When life is good and pleasant, it’s easy to start feeling lost. This is why people in this country are so rich but so, so poor. We coast through a life that gives us everything we’ve ever asked for but leaves us empty. Snotty prayer reminds us with a stab to the heart that we are very much alive. The pain exhilarates in a way that joy rarely does and we begin to feel again, to strive again, to fight again. Sometimes rock bottom is exactly where we need to be.
I think that snotty prayer is also a testimony to the depths of our faith. We doubt God’s existence when we’re unhappy, but we blame him when we’re miserable. We hope he’s not watching us when we’re trying to get away with something but we insist that he listens when we feel abandoned. I have my doubts about God–we all do–but never when I’m snotty. When I’m on my knees in the cornfield (or sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, more often), I know God’s there. I scream, “Are you listening? Do you even care? Why won’t you answer me??” But in those moments of desperation, it never occurs to me that he might not be there at all.
There’s a depth of faith, still beneath the rolling surface of daily mediocrity, that we doubt until we find ourselves raging against a God who, it seems, we knew was there all along.
This prayer is miserable, but it’s a blessing. It’s a reminder that we’re alive, a reminder that God is, too. And so, as much as it hurts, it’s beautiful. But faith can’t be sustained by this kind of prayer, either. For one thing, it would be exhausting. For another, your face would probably start to chap. But more importantly, prayer is more than emotion, positive or negative. Faith can be strengthened by this prayer, too, this prayer which in its suffering is somehow more real than even the saintly prayer. But what feeds our faith is much more mundane.
Boring Prayer
Maybe your daily prayer time is meaningful and directed without being thrilling. Maybe you find peace in practicing the presence of God and the stillness of your meditation strengthens you to continue. If so, I commend you (with slight bitterness and more than slight suspicion). For the rest of us, let’s talk about how boring prayer is.
It really is, isn’t it? No, not always. And, in my experience, it becomes less so the more you practice it. Until it doesn’t. And you go to the chapel and check your watch every 2 minutes until your holy hour is up.
Maybe I’m just more ADD than most, but my half hour meditation sometimes feels like a herculean task. I remember going to visit a former student when I was fresh out of the convent. I was a professional pray-er. She was 17. We went to do a holy hour together and mine looked like this:
Dear Jesus, I love you so much. Um, I really love you. A lot. You’re great. (58 and a half minutes to go) Um, help me be holy. I really want to do your will. Make me like you. (57 minutes to go)
Imagined continued platitudes and watch-checking for another 27 minutes, then various books and devotions and such to fill my hour. Meanwhile, Katherine knelt silently for an entire hour. I was so frustrated–I’m supposed to be good at prayer! I certainly practice it enough, right?
First of all, Meg, don’t be an idiot and quit comparing yourself to people. Remember when Peter did that?
Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” (Jn 21:20-22)
Jesus basically says, “Peter, shut up and deal with your own issues.”
But I think the real issue is that I naturally look down on prayer that’s difficult. I think it’s not real prayer unless I feel something. Why? The Christian life is difficult. It’s even dull much of the time. Why would prayer be any different?
Here’s what I think: a lot of the time, prayer is boring because it’s supposed to be. If I went to prayer every day because I enjoyed it, it would have nothing to do with love of God. Yes, sometimes I enjoy prayer. More often, though, I go because it is good, because he is good, because I want to be good. St. Thérèse said that when we want to leave prayer 3 minutes early, we should stay 3 minutes longer. If I took her at her word, I’d probably have to double all my prayer. But the point remains that the prayer we do not desire has the most merit.
People are always telling me that they don’t pray (or go to Mass or read the Bible or whatever) because they don’t “get anything out of it.” But that’s exactly when you get the most out of it! You get discipline and selflessness and the satisfaction of offering yourself to God not because of what he does but because of who he is.
Look at it another way: I hate to run. I refuse to do it. ((Seriously, if you chased me with a knife, I wouldn’t run. If I’m going to die anyway (which I will–I couldn’t outrun someone in a coma), I at least want to die breathing.))
Running is awful because I’m so out of practice. If I ran every day, I’m sure eventually it would become bearable. ((That’s what they tell me, anyway. And the crazies even say that running becomes fun. That I do not believe.))
Prayer is similar. We were made to worship but the Fall has us terribly out of shape. We need to practice. And as we pray each day and gradually increase our time in prayer, we will learn to hunger for it and even to experience God, to “get something out of it,” if you will. It won’t matter which of the Teresian mansions we’re in or what approach to prayer we’re taking because it will have transcended all that. But I would hazard a guess that most days it will still be boring.
I do get saintly prayer occasionally and I cherish it. And I even manage to rejoice in the gross, snotty prayer. But it’s the boring prayer where I put my money where my mouth is, where I kneel before the crucifix and tell God I love him.
I love you. Completely and entirely. I don’t care who you are or where you’re from. I don’t care about your race or class or level of education. I love you if you’re inconvenient or homeless or disabled or needy or loud or ugly or stupid or way too smart for your own good. I love you so much I don’t even put those labels on you. I just love you.
Because I Christian love you, I won’t allow your sin to define you in my mind. Everybody sins. Everybody I love is caught up in some struggle with evil. Some fight harder than others, but we’re all attached to some sin. I won’t say I don’t care how you sin. Because I love you, I care. Because I want what’s best for you, your personal life is my business. It hurts me to watch you hurt yourself and God. But I will try my best only to love you more the more you sin.
It didn’t change his love for me.
