To desire hints of need, want, ambition or passion. These suggest that what is, is incomplete. If you like, something is missing. Even before the “Fall” this lack was not an indication of brokenness. The Book of Genesis attests to this. “God saw that it was good” is the phrase we hear at the end of every stage of creation. And though Adam appeared to have crowned God’s creation, still God felt that he would be better off with a companion, Eve.
However, Adam and Eve were not the termini of creation. There was yet a journey of stewardship to undertake. Especially after the “Fall”, life became a pilgrimage of return to God. St Augustine’s “restlessness” best describes the sojourn of Man. “O God, You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You”. One can interpret the conversation between Jesus and the crowd through the prism of this Augustinian “dis-ease”. Whereas the crowd was focussed on fulfilling what appeared to be a temporary gratification, religion recognises this “disquiet” as Man’s desire for God—a search often sabotaged by confused cravings.
Thankfully, we are not left alone in this pilgrimage. In this reach for God, the Lord instituted the Church to be our guide and through her, gave us the sacraments to assist our passage. Let us consider an important Sacrament, that is, Baptism. Through the waters of baptism, the stain of Original Sin is washed away, and through the grace of adoption, we are made a part of God’s family.
However, ingrained in our pluralistic and egalitarian setting is a certain strain of indifference[1]. Under this convention of tolerance, “almost”[2] every possibility should be regarded as equal based on a rather putative understanding that freedom[3] resides in the choices available. For example, the insistence on the baptism of infants amongst couples of different religions would be judged as arrogant. “How dare the Church regard ‘non-Christians’ as less than equal?”.[4]
Where is the Church coming from?
The answer is to be found in Eucharistic coherence.[5] We have come to accept that religion is a matter of personal “choice” because we operate under that notion, in keeping with the trend of absolute personal freedom, and in this case, of giving the infant the option to choose when he or she comes of age. But such a sentiment reveals an incoherence in the behaviour of parents.
Would the same set of parents of a child suffering from acute leukaemia believe, in the name of “freedom”, that they should wait until the child can make the decision to seek treatment? Better still, what about a child with dengue fever? In matters especially of health and education, parents routinely, without second thoughts, make decisions for their offspring. Nobody chooses to send his or her child to a mediocre school. Parents customarily seek the best medical treatment for their children. Such a practice is most visible in a child who displays musical prodigy. Immediately he or she is enrolled for musical training. What is paradoxical is when a youth of 19 years believes that he or she is called by God to priestly or religious life, he or she would be advised to go “get some experiences” before making such a decision. It is incongruous when some parents want to “delay” their children’s baptism.
Worse than incoherence, it may also reveal an unwitting selfishness. How?
Either the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, or it is no more than a token for “membership” to denote that we belong to a community of some sorts. If what we receive is truly, really and substantially the Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity of Jesus the Lord, then a parent who consumes the Eucharist may be acting rather selfishly in denying a child the possibility of consuming the same food of eternal life.[6] Thus, in asking that children be baptised, the Church does not demand more than what she holds to be true. “The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth”. (CCC 1250).
Clearly, the above illustrates that coherence is needed in our age of confusion. The encounter between Jesus and the waiting crowd became a starting point for the clarification, or the rehabilitation of their desires. It could be ours too.[7] In the remaining weeks as we continue on our Eucharistic detour, we should ponder on what the Blessed Sacrament truly is and means to us. Like the Israelites tested in the desert, the pandemic is possibly purifying our hunger. As Jesus helped the crowd to reorient their desires, He also wants to realign our compass. Despite this painful punishing pandemic with the prohibition of public Masses, may we never lose sight of the centrality of the Eucharist. In the absence of public liturgy, may our appreciation, desire and longing only deepen for Him, the Bread of Eternal Life, the only true medicine of immortality.
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[1] Possibly Pelagian since there is a denial of the supernatural order of grace believing that we merit heaven through our own effort.
[2] For now, murder is unacceptable. But consider a movie like “The Purge”. In the name of “stabilising” society, once a year, all crimes, including murder, are considered legal.
[3] The freedom which we conceive of as expressing our individuality is rather tied to the normalisation of the abnormal or the “far out”. This already sounds “judgemental”. The truth is that this has mothing to do with real freedom. Freedom must be tied to eternity. We move in freedom only when we migrate from sin to grace. But what has happened is that our sense of individuality is shaped not by freedom but is dictated by fads and fancies. What happens when our fancies take a deeper dive than we care to acknowledge? What happens when incest, for example, becomes acceptable?
[4] Even the characterisation of the “other” as “non-” would be considered to be hegemonic and therefore insulting.
[5] This is of course a hotly debated topic in another country. It would appear that stating “what was once true and accepted” is now considered to be a weaponisation of the Eucharist. Both sides of the aisle use as a point of argument, the pastoral care of the soul. On one side, to deny the Eucharist is considered to be rehabilitative because it is reminding the sinner that his soul is in peril. On the other side, it is felt that the Eucharist is not a prize for the virtuous and giving it might just help the sinner be converted—the usual shibboleth applies “Who are we to judge?”. This strand of discussion on coherence is basically centred on the subject, that is, on the worthiness of or the lack of, of the communicant. While this question may have been pivoted on whether or not one has the right to judge another person, it fails to recognise that no one is ever worthy. The consideration seems to have skipped over the objective reality. What is one receiving? Or more appropriately, “Whom am I receiving?”. Coupled with this “Whom” is His Church and what the act of reception signifies. In the stress on the subject, both sides forget that the Eucharist is a more than a symbol (in this case, rather more than “shambolic”). Holy Communion represents “concordance” with the Church’s teaching. The teaching of the Church and the reception of the Eucharist go hand in hand because when we receive It, we are assenting to the deposit of faith revealed by Christ through His Church. In other words, the Eucharist intensifies our union with the Church and all her teachings.
[6] It is inconceivable that a parent would deny the best for his or her child. If so, then the action of the parent is either selfishness OR, closer to reality, for the parent, the Blessed Host is no more than a piece of dry biscuit, an empty symbol with no salvific consequences.
[7] As illustrated in the example above, young married couples may need to make the connexion between what they believe in (lex credendi) and how they ought to live (lex vivendi).
