Mass and rice

Towards the end of the day I happened to interact with almost a dozen youngsters individually on various topics. Some of these youngsters were new found 'friends' of last night, while others were some encounters old. Of the latter, a Catholic young man, strongly under the influence of Protestantism, had several things to clarify, especially with regard to the devotion to Our Lady and the use/veneration of statues in our rites and rituals. I would say, I surprised myself the way I responded to his sincere queries for clarification with strong analogies. While replying to his point that there are too many Marian prayers in contrast to very little of direct address to God and Jesus, I explained the centrality of the Holy Mass with an analogy: Of all the prayers the Holy Mass is the best... just like the food that we eat. There may be five varieties of pickle, 2 varieties of curry, 4 varieties of the same vegetable, yet there is only one type of rice. Now no one (at least in Andhra) eats all the above without rice. The rice forms the main part of the meal. The rest only adds to that. It is rice that makes the other food articles relevant and meaningful. Bereft of rice, no one eats the other items alone; it is not called a meal at all!