RonRolheiser,OMI

Bread and Wine

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At the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist he chose to use two elements, bread and wine. The images are now so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we never stop to ask, why bread and wine? Among all the things Jesus might have chosen, why these two? What do they carry in themselves that make them particularly apt to give expression to the body and blood of Christ? What, more particularly, does each represent?

As they are used in the Eucharist, bread and wine symbolize very different aspects of our lives, of our world, and of Jesus’ life.

Bread. What is bread? What did it represent for Jesus at that first Eucharist? A loaf of bread is made up of many kernels of wheat which when ground up lose their separate identity and become a single loaf. In the Eucharist, the bread represents us, many individuals, now together as one body, the Body of Christ. But it also represents a particular aspect of our lives, namely, our lives insofar as we are joyous, healthy, in community with each other, and thriving as God’s children. The smell of fresh bread speaks of life. So does the bread at the Eucharist. It becomes the bread of the world’s achievements and holds up for God’s blessing all that is young, healthy, creative, and bursting with life.

Metaphorically, the bread celebrates the Galilean period in Jesus’ life and in our own lives – the time of youth, of miracles, of walking on water, of raising people from the dead, of the joyous energy of life, of falling in love, and of the birth of new life.

The wine. What did it represent for Jesus and what does it represent in the Eucharist? Wine is made from crushed grapes and represents blood. And as the blood of Christ, it represents all that is broken, fragile, not whole, sick, suffering, and dying in the world. It is the wine of the world’s mortality and inadequacy, the blood of all is crushed as the world’s achievements take place.

 Metaphorically, the wine commemorates the Jerusalem period of Jesus’ life and that period in our own lives – the time of misunderstanding, of being the victim, of mental anguish, of physical anguish, of being ostracized, of the loneliness of dying when others can’t help us.

And the two together make for one balanced whole, life in all its aspects. In effect, when the presider at a Eucharist holds up the bread and wine, this what is being said: Lord, what I hold up for you today is all that is in this world, both of joy and suffering – the bread of the world’s achievements and the blood of all that’s crushed as those achievements take place. I offer you everything that is healthy and thriving in our world – the joy at our tables, the joy of children, the hopeful dreams of the young, the satisfaction of achievement, and everything that’s creative and bursting with life, even as I offer you all that is weak, feeble, aged, crushed, sick, dying, and victimized. I offer to you all the pagan beauties, pleasures, and joys of this life, even as I stand with you under the cross, affirming that the one who is excluded from earthly pleasure is the cornerstone of the community. I offer you the strong, along with the weak and gentle of heart, asking you to bless both and stretch my heart so that it can, like you, hold and bless everything that is. I offer you both the wonders and the pains of this world, your world.

Spirituality might take some lessons from this. Too often spiritualities are one-sided and need balance.

On the one hand, a spirituality can center itself too one-sidedly on human thriving to the neglect of human inadequacy: suffering, sin, mortality, and of Jesus’ invitation to take up his cross. It celebrates only youth, health, prosperity, and goodness – and presents a Jesus who offers us a Prosperity Gospel rather than a Whole Gospel.

Conversely, a spirituality can center itself too one-sidedly on human inadequacy: sin, mortality, asceticism, and the renunciation of pleasure. It celebrates the old but not the young, the sick but not the healthy, the poor but not the prosperous, the dying but not the living, and the next world but not this one. This strips the Gospel of its wholeness and presents a Jesus who is an unhealthy ascetic and frowns on natural human happiness.

The bread and wine in the Eucharist give voice to all aspects of life. In the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the words of consecration at a Eucharist in essence read like this: “Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day, I say again the words: ‘This is my body’. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, I speak again your words which express the supreme mystery of faith: ‘This is my blood.’”

A Universal Creed

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Creeds ground us. Within a short formula they summarize the main tenets of our faith and keep us mindful of the truths that anchor us.

As a Christian, I pray two creeds, The Apostles’ Creed and The Nicene Creed. But I also pray another creed which grounds me in some deep truths which are not always sufficiently recognized as inherent in our Christian creeds. This creed, given in the Epistle to the Ephesians, is stunningly brief and simply reads: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is Father of us all.

That’s a lot in a few words! This creed, while Christian, takes in all denominations, all faiths, and all sincere persons everywhere. Everyone on the planet can pray this creed because ultimately there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God who created and loves us all.

This has far-reaching consequences for how we understand God, other Christian denominations, other faiths, sincere non-believers, and ourselves. There is only one God, no matter our denomination, particular faith, or no explicit faith at all. The one same God is the loving creator and parent of everyone. And that one God has no favorites, doesn’t dislike certain persons, denominations, or faiths, and never disdains goodness or sincerity, no matter their particular religious or secular cloak.

And these are some of the consequences: First, Jesus assures us that God is the author of all that is good. In addition, as Christians we believe that God has certain transcendental attributes, namely, God is one, true, good, and beautiful. If that is true (and how could it be otherwise?), then everything we see in our world that is integral, true, good, or beautiful, whatever its outward label (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, New Age, Neo-Pagan, or purely Secular), comes from God and must be honored.

John Muir once challenged Christianity with this question: Why are Christians so reluctant to let animals into their stingy heaven? The creed in the Epistle to the Ephesians asks something similar: Why are Christians so reluctant to let other denominations, other faiths, and good sincere people without explicit faith into our stingy concept of God, Christ, faith, and the church? Why are we afraid of faith fellowship with Christians of other denominations? Why are we afraid of faith fellowship with sincere Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and New Age religious? Why are we afraid of paganism? Why are we afraid of natural sacraments?

There can be good reasons. First, we do need to safeguard precisely the truths expressed in our creeds and not slide into an amorphous syncretism in which everything is relative, where all truths and all religions are equal, and the only dogmatic requirement is that we be nice to each other. Although there is, in fact, something (religious) to be said about being nice to each other, the more important point is that embracing each other in faith fellowship is not saying that all faiths are equal and that one’s particular denomination or faith tradition is unimportant. Rather it is acknowledging (importantly) that, at the end of the day, we are all one family, under one God, and that we need to embrace each other as brothers and sisters. Despite our differences, we all have the same radical creed.

Then too, as Christians, we believe that Christ is the unique mediator between God and ourselves. As Jesus puts it, no one goes to the Father, except through me. If that is true, and as Christians we hold that as dogma, then where does that leave Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Jews, Muslims, New Agers, Neo-Pagans, and sincere non-believers? How do they share the kingdom with us Christians since they do not believe in Christ?

As Christians, we have always had answers to that question. The Catholic catechisms of my youth spoke of a “baptism of desire” as a way of entry into the mystery of Christ. Karl Rahner spoke of sincere persons being “anonymous Christians”. Frank de Graeve spoke of a reality he called “Christ-ianity”, as a mystery wider than historical “Christianity”; and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoke of Christ as being the final anthropological and cosmological structure within the evolutionary process itself. What all of these are saying is that the mystery of Christ cannot be identified simplistically with the historical Christian churches. The mystery of Christ works through the historical Christian churches but also works, and works widely, outside of our churches and outside the circles of explicit faith.

Christ is God and therefore is found wherever anyone is in the presence of oneness, truth, goodness, and beauty. Kenneth Cragg, after many years as a missionary with the Muslims, suggested that it is going to take all the religions of the world to give full expression to the full Christ.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is Father of us all – and so we should not be so reluctant to let others, not of our own kind, into our stingy heaven.

A Double Primordial Branding Within

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From Pierre Teilhard de Chardin we get these words: “Because, my God, though I lack the soul-zeal and the sublime integrity of your saints, I yet have received from you an overwhelming sympathy for all that stirs within the dark mass of matter; because I know myself to be irremediably less a child of heaven and a son of earth.”

These words, like the words that open St. Augustine’s famous Confessions, not only describe a lifelong tension inside its author; they also name the foundational pieces for an entire spirituality. For everyone who is emotionally healthy and honest, there will be a lifelong tension between the attractions of this world and the lure of God. The earth, with its beauties, its pleasures, and its physicality can take our breath away and have us believe that this world is all there is and all that needs to be. Who needs anything further? Isn’t life here on earth enough? Besides, what proof is there for any reality and meaning beyond our lives here?

But even as we are so powerfully, and rightly, drawn to the world and what it offers, another part of us finds itself caught in the embrace and the grip of another reality, the divine, which though more inchoate, is no less unrelenting. It also tells us that it is real, that its reality ultimately offers life, that it needs to be honored, and that it may not be ignored. And, just like the reality of the world, it presents itself both as promise and threat. Sometimes it’s felt as a warm cocoon in which we sense ultimate shelter and sometimes we feel its power as a threatening judgment on our superficiality, mediocrity, and sin. Sometimes it blesses our fixation on earthly life and its pleasures and sometimes it frightens us and relativizes both our world and our lives. We can sometimes shield ourselves from it by distraction or denial; but it stays, maintaining always a powerful tension inside us: we are irremediably children of both heaven and earth; both God and the world ask for our attention.

That’s how it’s meant to be. God made us irremediably physical, fleshy, earth-oriented, with virtually every instinct inside us reaching for the things of this earth. We should not then expect that God wants us to shun this earth, deny its genuine beauty, and attempt to step out of our bodies, our natural instincts, and our physicality to fix our eyes only on the things of heaven. God did not build this world as a testing place, a place where obedience and piety are to be tested against the lure of earthly pleasure, to see if we’re worthy of heaven. This world is its own mystery with its own meaning, a God-given one. It’s not simply a stage upon which we, as humans, play out our individual dramas of salvation and then close the curtain as we leave. It’s a place for all of us, humans, animals, insects, plants, water, rocks, and soil to enjoy a home together.

But that’s the root of a great tension inside us. Unless we deny either our most powerful human instincts or our most powerful religious sensibilities, we will find ourselves forever torn between two worlds, with seemingly conflicting loyalties, caught between the lure of this world and the lure of God.

I know how true this is for my own life. I was born into this world with two incurable loves and have spent my life and ministry caught and torn between the two. I have always loved the pagan world for its honoring of this life and for its celebration of the wonders of the human body and the beauty and pleasure that our five senses bring us. With my pagan brothers and sisters, I too honor the lure of sexuality, the comfort of human community, the delight of humor and irony, and the remarkable gifts given us by the arts and the sciences. But at the same time, I have always found myself in the grip of another reality – the divine, faith, religion. Its reality too has always commanded my attention – and, more importantly, dictated the important choices in my life.

My major choices in life incarnate and radiate a great tension because they’ve tried to be true to a double primordial branding inside me, the pagan and the divine. I can’t deny the reality, lure, and goodness of either of them. It’s for this reason that I can live as a consecrated, life-long celibate, committed to religious ministry, even as I deeply love the pagan world, bless its pleasures, and bless the goodness of sex even as I renounce it. That’s also the reason why I’m chronically making an apology to God for the world’s pagan resistance, even as I’m trying to make an apologia for God to the world. I have torn loyalties.

That is as it should be. The world is meant to take our breath away, even as we genuflect before the author of that breath.