Last week, I spoke of a vague rejection of
the Resurrection. Here is another example of how unwittingly we do it.
Since we live so close to our neighbour down south, some of us might
tune in to their radio stations. [For me, it’s Class 95]. One of the
things which they are trying to raise awareness of is pre-diabetes and
we are told that it a condition which is reversible. The attempt to
prevent the onslaught of this condition—Alzheimers/Parkinsons or that
disease—cancer/AIDS is similar to what takes place at funerals—that is,
we like to assign a cause for one’s death. "His son died from a car accident" or "her mother died from cancer". "Their father died from second-hand
smoke of their chain-smoking mother". The fact is, with or without a
condition or disease, everyone will die sooner or later. No matter how
much we try to prevent it, death ultimately will claim us.
This
week, our topic continues along the line of food and eating. It is
ironical that we want to stave off death, that is, in yearning for
earthly immortality, we are eating ourselves to death. The curse of a
developed and developing nation is an insatiable appetite to eat and not
just that, to eat more than we should. It is conceivable that our
taste-buds have become jaded from over eating, hence our foods have to
be super-flavourful—added sugar, added fat, added herb and spices, added
salt and on top of that everything is supersized.
Today,
in the interest of living longer and healthier but not in an effort to
avoid death or an expression of a disbelief in the Resurrection, the
first reading might just teach us how to avoid diabetes.
Elijah
is on the run. He had managed to dis the prophets of Baal and Queen
Jezebel was hounding him. To have done good and be punished for it, even
the stoutest amongst us may just give in to discouragement and
depression. He sits under a furze or gorse bush desiring to die. But the
angel, woke up and told him to eat. Perhaps you realise why many of us
are predisposed to pre-diabetes. We do not need angels to remind us that
food can lift us out of our depression. Carbohydrates work wonders as a
comfort food. But, instead of eating for strength, food has become the
drug of the depressed.
In that case, how to avoid diabetes?
The
French have two words which might help us make a transition—from
comfort food to food for the journey. They are gourmand and gourmet.
Both words are related to food. The former describes a person who is
excessively fond of eating and drinking whereas the latter describes one
who is a connoisseur of good food and drink. In other words, a gourmet
is one who cultivates a discriminating palate whilst enjoying the finer
things in life. Like Remy the rat in Ratatouille. All this relatives and
friends are gourmands because they go for quantity unlike Remy who says
that his mouth is made for better things.
Now,
just because one likes the finer things in life, they do not
automatically elevate a person to the status of a gourmet. Najib and his
wife (if Shafie were here, he would assert that Najib is being publicly
tried in a homily) could be fine illustrations of how one can
appreciate the finer things in life and yet be gourmands. Many may not
see it this way but like over-eating, one can also accumulate to death.
Today
Jesus continues to invite his Jewish listeners to a discerning
recognition for what is truly the food for heaven. Sadly, their response
was biblically predictable. How? Like their ancestors, they started
murmuring—a reaction which betrays not an absence of refinement but
rather of a lack of trust.
Why would
Jesus want to introduce the people to this fine form of food? St Thomas
in the commentary on Book IV of the Sentences gives us the perfect clue.
He says, “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, Commentary on Book
IV of the Sentences, d. 12, q. 2, a. 11.
In
short, we become what we eat. Stand next to a man who consumes all the
floating bulbs of garlic in your pot of Bak Kut Teh and the following
morning you will be standing next to a garlic garden. They say that food
is cheap in the USA—usually the bad ones are—and thus you have lots of
obese people because they resemble the greasy burgers and fries they
consume.
The Jews certainly did not
understand that the food that Jesus gives was for an eternal purpose. We
eat so that we can become whom we have eaten. We eat the Body of Christ
so that we can truly transform into the Body of Christ. I like Corpus
Christi but it can be a harrowing experience for us living in a country
unaccustomed to the deep symbolism of the procession. It definitely is
an inconvenience to those who do not believe as we jam up the road and
block traffic. Only that, we look ridiculous at best and idolatrous
at worst. But, therein a most sublime symbolism—the Body of Christ, the
Church, carrying the real Body of Christ. We want to become Him who
became one of us.
St Paul in the 2nd
Reading in detailing how members of a community should behave with each
other is actually describing what sort of relationships that should
exist within the Body of Christ. Within that community, members find
their relationships enriched because of their conversion in Jesus
Christ. To be more like Jesus, we need to consume Him more. But never in
the gourmand sense that one receives communion in as many Masses they
are in town.
In summary, our
appreciation of the finer things in life begins with an acknowledgement
that the Eucharist is tied up with the Resurrection for the Resurrection
would be meaningless without and vice versa. The less we believe in the
Resurrection, the less will we honour the Blessed Sacrament. But, the
Resurrection is not a far off event somewhere beyond the pale. Instead,
the belief in it begins now in the concrete—in the who we are and how we
behave—as the Body of Christ, but it does not end here and for that, we
need the Bread of Life to accompany us as the Viaticum, giving us
strength, slowly, surely, changing us so that what we have begun here,
will culminate in the eternity we wish to spend in His presence. St
Ignatius of Antioch may have called the Eucharist the medicine of
immortality and antidote of death—and so for us, to paraphrase Buzz
Lightyear, the Eucharist is the real and only food we need for this long
journey to infinity and beyond.
