God and humanity

 

Theology of the Eucharist

Ethiopia suffered a terrible famine during the years 1984 to 1986.  Cardinal Hume of Westminister tells about an incident that happened when he visited Ethiopia in the middle of the famine.  One of the places he visited was a settlement up in the hills where the people were waiting for food which was unlikely to arrive.  He was taken there in a helicopter.  

As he got out of the helicopter a small boy, aged about ten, came up to him and took his hand.  He was wearing nothing but a loincloth round his waist.  The while time the cardinal was there the little child would not let go of his hand.  

As they went around he made two gestures: with one hand he pointed to his mouth, and with the other he took the cardinal's nand and rubbed it on his cheek.  

Later the cardinal said, "Here was an orphan boy who was lost and starving.  Yet by two simple gestures he indicated our two fundamental needs or hungers.  With one gesture he showed me his hunger for food, and with the other his hunger for love." 

"I have never forgotten that incident, and to this day I wonder whether that child is still alive. I remember that as I boarded the helicopter he stood and looked at me reproachfully."

[Source: Found as part of the 'homily' on a piece of photocopied paper! Not sure of the original source! Certainly not mine!]

Hunger

If there is one thing we religious - among the many! - have really no experience of, then that is hunger!  The occasional times we are late for meals or carry out fasts during retreats or days of Lent, hardly qualify to be termed hunger.  Real hunger is the physical feeling coupled with the awareness that I do not have and will get no food to eat!  Among the many privileges our profession and ordination offers us is this guarantee of food, irrespective of whether we have worked for it or not.  

There's many a one who would be idle if hunger didn't pinch him; but the stomach sets us to work. [George Eliot, author Felix Holt (1866)]

Hunger

What most of us experience or speak about when we talk about 'hunger' is only the text book definition of it: lack of food.  Real hunger is not merely lack of food, well assured of a meal in a known time ... something that we undergo or experience during some retreat or Lenten fasts or for medical purposes.  Real hunger is lack of food, and the knowledge that there is no assurance of and if there is going to be any meal at all!

Luxury of plenty

Some confreres still get surprised when they see me eat breakfast (for quite sometime now it is only brunch!)... just anything that is there in the fridge.  I mostly eat what is most likely to go in the bin the first!  No one in the community really eats anything that's left over of the previous meals.  Meals containing fish is a perfect 'no-repeat'!  However, with me, there is no expiry date for any food!  This morning someone asked me, "How can you take that for breakfast?"  I replied, "Why not? It is food.  For those who have the luxury of plenty and choice, there is 'breakfast', 'lunch' and 'dinner'.  For the many who hardly have enough to eat, it is just food!"

Coming from a culture where I food is valued with great respect and having grown up in a habit of not wasting any food, I now cannot stomach food being thrown.  There is also the respect for the farmer who slogs for months or years to grow the produce, be that a vegetable or an animal.  Then there is the animal or the fish that is slain purely for consumption.  If that sole purpose is so easily and fanatically discarded, then life itself is treated so. Here in the UK, sometimes 'health and safety' does cross the threshold of paranoia.

Chrysostom on the Eucharist and the other

Two significant quotes of John Chrysostom that I heard today:

Would you like to honor the body of Christ you receive in the Eucharist? Do not despise the poor when you see him clothed in rags... He who said 'this is my body', has said also 'You have seen me hungry and you did not give me to eat! Whatever you have refused to do for any of these little ones, you have refused it to me also!

What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger. Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.

Feasting on hunger

I distinctly remember the first retreat that I attended.  It was during my school days.  Well, I remember it not because of any spiritual or divine experience, but for a very very particular habit that I learnt.

As it is, vegetables were not a favourite at home.  I did eat some but some type of vegetables no one at home liked. Brinjals were on the top of that list.  And so we never had brinjals cooked at home.  Well, back to the retreat.  The day we began, we had some light breakfast some prayer in the morning and then for lunch, guess what did we have? Brinjal curry!  I looked around and everyone was having a real feast. I for one, decided to give it a miss.  So I did not eat anything that noon.  Then post-lunch we had some activities and even a round of games.  By the end of the day I was tired... and hungry.  And what were we served for supper? Brinjal, again!!  By that time, I was so hungry that out went my resolution not to eat brinjals.  I just ate... and it was good. From that day on, there is nothing that I really desist.  I do have likes and preferences but not any food item that I will say a categorical 'no' to.

With all the hunger and need for food that I've seen, everytime I come across food being wasted, it churns my stomach. That experience that day, taught me never ever to desist any food.

Wastage of food

Compared to the third world countries, it is in the remaining part of the world that much food gets wasted or lost.  While in the latter, food is lost due to improper ways of preservation or what is called as post-harvest losses.  In the developed part of the world, the story is no different.  However, the addition is that often food and related products go unsold and then get thrashed.  Was surprised to read that nearly one-third of food produced for consumption gets lost or wasted...

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): ‘Roughly one third of the food in the world produced for human consumption every year – approximately 1.3 billion tons – gets lost or wasted.’ Broken down by food category, the FAO estimates that 30 per cent of world production of cereals is lost or wasted, 20 per cent of dairy production, 35 per cent of ‘harvested’ fish and seafood, 20 per cent of the world’s meat, 20 per cent of all oilseeds and pulses, and a staggering 45 per cent of both roots and tubers, and fruits and vegetables too. [Source: Aeon]

Danger to philosophy...

Here's one of Rorty's concluding words in his book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (389):

But the dangers to abnormal discourse do not come from science or naturalistic philosophy. They come from the scarcity of food and from the secret police.  Given leisure and libraries, the conversation which Plato began will not end in self-objectivation - not because aspects of the world, or of human beings, escape being objects of scientific inquiry, but simply because free and leisured conversation generates abnormal discourse as the sparks fly upward.  

This point Rorty gets it perfectly right.  In times and places where food and justice are at stake, no philosophy is possible.  Survival is certainly of prime importance. Philosophy - or rather, philosophizing - is something for the 'good' times!

Jules sent me this picture, which somehow fits in with this thought:

Lack of hunger, not food!

A young Jesuit keen on gaining a wide experience of the different forms and ways of life spent a day as a beggar near a busy street. At the end of the day, he had not received a single penny.  Not one had given him anything at all!!  Hungry, tired and totally at a loss, as this young cleric was about to return to his seminary, a 'fellow' beggar noticing his "zero balance" offered him some bread.  As they together ate the bread, the seminarian was grateful for this kind gesture and at the end of the conversation, the senior man told him not to get discouraged but to come back again the next day.

I know not if the cleric went back the next day or not, but I'm told that from that day on he learnt the value of food.

"I am the bread of life" makes sense only in such a context, not when you have your table full and overflowing and you have nothing more to do than just go and eat!  If you really are hungry, the type of food will not matter and certainly you will be genuinely grateful.

What most of us religious lack is not food or resources (never!) but real hunger!

Burning with a hunger

I spent the morning at our novitiate house interacting with the 8 novices of our Province.  It was good.  After long, engaging myself in a discussion and that too discussing matters concerning vocation and religious life... it felt good.  Moreover it was good to be questioned about some of the things I said or what they had heard of religious, or priestly life.  Though most of it was the usual set of questions that I am asked: Difference between Brs and Priests? Response of my parents to my decision to be a Br?  Formation course of both?  My experience as a Br among Priests?

However, there was something that I emphasised most during the interaction with them: A diminishing HUNGER or PASSION for anything in life.  That they seemed to have grasped and acknowledged too.  I did not speak of passion for Christ or God, at all but rather insisted on having a passion for atleast something in life.  Unless there is that hunger we live a very complacent life ... and modern notion of religious life, further strengthens that lethargy and mediocrity, I added.

Real fasting

Fasting is often seen as a powerful weapon in our spiritual journey towards God. However, it is not something very pleasant or something habitual. It becomes all the more burdensome when we are doing it as a bargain chip with God for something we need from Him. The real fast would be the one wherein we are willing to give up anything, not just food or drink, because we hunger for God.

Bread & fish vs Bread & wine

One interesting fact pointed out by the author, Richard Rohr in his book Jesus' Plan for a New World, is the overshadowing of the 'bread and fish' tradition by the 'bread and wine' tradition.

According to Rohr, the bread and fish meal stood for surplus (everytime Jesus multiplied bread and fish or there was fish involved, there always was a surplus of it, even after a mass consumption).  Secondly such meals involved the poor and hungry, not those already fulfilled, those who really came for Him and did not think of food and drink and all that - for such as these, He multiplied bread and fish. Thirdly, this meal was always an open meal - out in the open, under the blue sky, in the open fields, along the sea shore (I don't remember all the Biblical references, but I know there are).  Everyone was welcome - everyone!  Not just a select few or privileged ones.  Given these factors, I wonder how this was superseded by the one-time 'bread and wine' meal.  Of course, the bread and wine meal has a personal touch - Jesus says it is HIS body and blood that He is sharing.  Perhaps a combination of all these positive aspects would help us get a better picture of the 'Eucharist'.

And here's what Rohr has to say about the two meals:

The bread and wine tradition lent itself more to cult and ritualization. The bread and fish tradition, if retained, might have contributed to issues of justice, community and social reordering.  

Well, he has a point there. 

Give God to ...

The other day Fr KT's sermon was quite revealing... that is only to those who really understood or took pains to see the connection he was subtly making. His main point was that there is a grave danger in giving food to those who are not hungry. To the one who is hungry any food would do. The hungry man is not going to throw a tantrum about the variety of food or anything of that sort. His only and only need is to satisfy his hunger. (Of course, that does not mean you give him thrash.)

On the other hand, giving food to one who is not hungry will incur his wrath and ensure a string of complaints and grumblings. The need is not what you provide but something else. Therefore what you now provide will always have something or the other deficient.

The same applies to human quest for God... and for that matter anything in life. Only those who are tuned in to that direction will progress, others keep wandering and never reach anywhere. (Now that is not a real problem, wandering about, but when they start blaming everyone and everything around them for their present state or keep grumbling, then it surely is something that I personally do not approve of.)

To dream and survive on dreams!

These days everyone is talking about the transfers. With practically everyone being told to 'be ready', the guess game is getting all the more intense day by day. I also realise how different people see themselves and the roles they play in the various communities, fulfilling the different responsibilities entrusted to them either by the Province or by the local community. Then there are the 'dreams' and 'plans' and 'ideas' about the 'next' place.

An article in the paper today was quite in contrast to all this. It was about the plight of the poor in the various parts of the country for whom the only thing they possess is their dreams. And what are their dreams? One solid meal atleast once in a life time, one cake of soap to have a bath, one piece of decent clothing, one good harvest, one heavy rain, some fresh vegetables for their kids... that's all. Just that. Nothing more! Not even the faintest hope that just any one of these would ever become a reality.

While some dream all the time, for very many dreams is all they have! Some dream and others survive because they dream!

Labour and food

I took a walk to the construction site this evening and was struck by the hard work of the labourers there. Men and women, carrying heavy loads of sand, pebbles and cement. When I looked at their children gladly rolling in the sand or having a meal or trying to sleep, it struck me: what a fate, those who are now building the school will never get to even enter the same school once it is complete, leave alone get their children admitted into the school. Fr TV Thomas too made the same observation this afternoon at table. Karl Marx had a point when he made his theory of exploitation.

However the most touching incident of this evening was when a mother gave some food to her small son: just some rice put in a small bowl and then some curry which surely must have been cooked early morning. I couldn't but contrast that scene with the table that was set for yesterday's feast meal in the afternoon. Here was a small child happily eating just rice and curry and we had to have a large table with so much of variety that we hardly tasted half of what was set before us to appease our hunger - the same mortal hunger!