Better to Eat Meat and Drink Wine Than Eat the Flesh of the Brothers

At Saint Mary’s University between 2002 and 2004, I was employed by the Campus Ministry Department. I was one of two “Ministerial Assistants” of the six or so people who worked in Campus Ministry. What that meant was that I was responsible to help the priests in Mass, tidy the chapel and ensure the two sacristies were in top shape. I was a crucifer, an Eucharistic minister, censer bearer, candle lighter and supplied a new host in the monstrance. The Father who hired me knew that I was United Methodist (and thus, not Roman Catholic) but it took the rest of the staff about a year to discover this not-withheld-just-never-mentioned fact. There were some questions, but the depth of our relationships were such that they knew where my heart was. Ecclesiastical differences were trivial.

Not a St. Mary’s Chapel, but my job would be the guy holding the cape.

Of course one of the big questions that I was asked with was around communion. As a Ministerial Assistant, I was privileged to handle the bread and the consecrated hosts. I put the consecrated elements in the tabernacle. I genuflected and bowed appropriately, or at least well enough that it took a year for someone to notice I lacked the smoothness of motion that comes with years of practice. I continued to hold to the United Methodist stance on the sacrament, but I respect transubstantiation even to this day. Communion or the Eucharist is a sacred thing and I was honored to serve at St. Mary’s University as the first non-catholic hired as a Ministerial Assistant.

One of the things that I came to appreciate in the countless opportunities to serve in Mass was the beauty of eating the actual body and drinking the actual blood of Christ. Before any theological argument breaks out over transubstantiation, or consubstantiation, or symbol; before our minds consider how cannibalistic the act of eating Christ sounds.; before we think about the difficulties imaging that bread and wine become body and blood, perhaps we can consider one truth:

We consume one another all of the time.

Benedicta Ward translates a saying of Hyperichius, ‘It is better to eat meat and drink wine than eat the flesh of the brothers by disparaging them.’

Through our language and through our actions we devour one another all of the time. Consider the headlines after a debate between two people. Someone always “slaughters” the other one. Sometimes they are “crushed.” If the conversation was good we might even say we were “consumed” in the moment.

With this in mind, transubstantiation, or consubstantiation may not sound as difficult to imagine. One of the differences is that when we consume another, we often do it out of violence. That is to say, we consume one another often against the will of the one being consumed. While in the Eucharist or Communion the one being consumed (Christ) is offering himself for consumption. It is as though Jesus says, “Rather than devour one another in violence, I offer myself.”

Jesus also says, every time you eat and drink do it in remembrance of me. We often limit ourselves to thinking about ever time we sit down to eat a meal. However, what if Jesus meant every time you want to consume someone or something, remember the one who freely gave himself for all to consume.

One Seeking Perfection Must...

John Cassian has a collection of writings he called The Institutes. Within these writings lay a number of precious gems for the reader. I wanted to highlight one of those gems - what might the disciple of Christ expect to go through on the path of being of the charter of Christ? Another way to think about this might be to consider Jesus when he says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How are we to move toward being made perfect in love?

Cassian suggests a series of actions that you can take that reveal the next step to take. As you walk, being able to see only one step at a time, you will come to the Kingdom of Heaven. I have not found a more concise description of what Cassian describes than from Philip Turner’s book Christian Ethics and the Church: Ecclesial Foundations for Moral Thought and Practice. Consider what Turner writes:

The process begins with the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. Fear drives one to conversion and the search for perfection. The search requires that one, through renunciation, develop contempt for worldly things including family and possessions. Renunciation leads in turn to the virtue of humility from which is generated the dying of desire, and when desire has died the vices are uprooted and wither away. With the expulsion of the vices, virtue begins to grow and bear fruit. When virtue is abundant, purity of heart is acquired and, with purity of heart, the kingdom of heaven.

We start with a fear of the Lord. When we compare ourselves to the Lord we are brought to our knees and we desire conversion. The desire for conversion admits that the current course we are on is not sufficient to the standard of God’s heart, so we renounce our current way of living. But renouncing our current way of living we become a novice to life again and we are humbled. And when we are humbled to this new way of living that we know little about, our past desires atrophy. If we are able to arrive to this point where we renounce our past lives and desires then the vices of our past also die. In this way we are born again, made new. The death of desires and vices is the very fertile ground God uses to plant virtue. When lives around the world are full for good fruit (Matthew 7:17) we discover we all live in a new garden called the Kingdom of God.

And so, take the first step and see what is revealed. Ask yourself, “Do I feel like I am God’s equal?”

Forgetting to Forgive

Maybe you have heard the idea that we should “forgive and forget.” The idea that if someone hurts us we should forgive them and if we keep remembering the infraction then we really have not forgiven someone. So we must forget. Until we forget the infraction we have not forgiven.

There is so much written about how this understanding of forgiving is just flat wrong. If we forget then we are at risk of being hurt in the same way again. In fact, it makes the forgiveness even more powerful if we do not forget the infraction. This is where stories of forgiveness are the most powerful. When someone who remembers the infraction but still extends forgiveness it is a powerful witness.

This is not a post about how forgiving and forgetting in this way is harmful (it is). This post is a call to actually forgive and forget. However the greater question is what are we to forget? I would submit that we are to forgive and forget but not forget the infraction but forget something else.

What are we to forget?

An elephant never forgets…

When I was a child and watching my children now, I observe that when there is a pain or a hurt there is a reaction that happens. It is the same reaction that can be observed in adults in different environments: revenge. The revenge reaction is strong in many of us, so strong in fact that we have to be taught that punishment needs to fit the crime. If someone hits you in the face, you don’t get to cut off their arm. That punishment does not fit the crime. So we have to learn the “eye for an eye” ethic. And therein resides what we need to forget.

We need to forget our desire for revenge.

Forgiving and forgetting is the practice of forgetting our revenge ethic so that we can find how to forgive. We cannot forgive while we still remember our desire for revenge.

Perhaps in this way we can say we are forgetting to forgive. Not that we are one’s who do not remember to forgive but that we are ones who know that we need to forget something on the way to forgiveness.

Remember, do not forget the wrong thing.