On account of this Marian diversion, we will skip an important section of the reading from the Bread of Life discourse in John’s Gospel. For now, this week’s reflexion begins with the experience of Elijah because he is connected to our present predicament. “Your man”, as the Irish would say, might as well be the Prophet of Lockdowns! He was hounded by his enemies and cornered. In the 1st Reading, he was trapped and on the verge of giving up. Like him, we have been driven by this virulent plague into isolation. It does not help that in this country, we are hostage to a series of mindless vacillation between restrictions and relaxations. All efforts at staying put and all attempts to curb the contagion have left many struggling with pandemic fatigue. Like Elijah, our exhaustion brings us to the next point.
We may be tired out but what is the state of our souls?
According to St Alphonsus de Ligouri, “The business of eternal salvation is assuredly an affair which is to us more important than any other, and it is the most neglected by Christians”[3]. With regard to the afterlife, the Eucharist is food for the soul in the pilgrimage there. To understand what this means, we turn to a principle that is used in the interpretation of Canon Law and that is, salus animarum est suprema lex[4]. The salvation of souls is the supreme law. Simply translated, salvation is the central mission of Christ. He came to save souls. For this reason, He established the Church so that she can continue His mission. Everything must flow into this goal.
Perhaps, the “distraction” in the Gospel is also ours. The crowd was drawn towards how Jesus can provide them with physical satisfaction. We too can be side-tracked even by what is considered to be a good. Yes, what we hope to achieve as Church, as faithful servants of Christ is important. We want to heal the sick, right the wrongs of injustice, rehabilitate our political structures, make the economy more equitable and now, of course, the flavour of the month is to save the environment. All these objectives are important. But they are not the same as saving souls. The Church must align herself with Christ for ultimately, His mission was and is not the amelioration of human misery, no matter how noble or meaningful. The uncomfortable truth is that it concerns the eternity of the soul.
If that is the case, then what constitutes the salvation of souls?
The answer we give to the question of salvation will determine our response. The present protocols we have put in place seem to be centred on the conversation of the body. What about the soul? So, for the moment, setting aside the safety restrictions, meaning, we recognise that we ought to render to Caesar what belongs to him[5], a relevant scenario to contemplate is how we should render to God what belongs to Him. In other words, how to provide the nourishment necessary for the soul’s survival? Without losing sight of our material make-up, that is, our rootedness in this world, we are advised that the conversation between Jesus and the crowd was focused on salvation of both body AND soul; not body OR soul.
However, the reality is that, by and large, Catholics have been prevented from receiving Holy Communion. Public Masses are barred for valid reasons. Is there a spiritual component in this current situation? Even during the months of relaxation, some who have no reasons to, have voluntarily denied themselves of Holy Communion but would have no problems engaging in economic or recreational activities. Somewhere in this equation, the coherent picture of both body and soul is absent. Unwittingly we labour under a logic that there is less Covid danger outside the Church whereas involvement in Church could be Covid death. If we accept the premise that the Eucharist is truly the Bread of Eternal Life, then its privation must have a spiritual impact on the soul. And ultimately when Eucharist is denied to souls, would Satan not have triumphed?
Through this pandemic, in the consideration of eternal redemption, we walk the tightrope of balancing between the preservation of the body and the salvation of the soul. This juggling act ties in with our belief in the Resurrection of the body. What has happened thus far can be illustrated by a fishing technique practised in South East Asia. The "Kelong" which is a marine construction that corrals fishes into a narrow channel so that as they swim, they are moving towards their eventual capture in the net. The conventions created to contain Covid have basically acted like a “Kelong” in which we have been corralled into behaviour patterns which are somewhat disjointed or “dispirited”[6].
The whole movement towards virtual reality might seem like a life saver for so many who are isolated. This is not a Luddite criticism of those who have grown accustomed to live-streamed Masses. In this long Johannine Eucharistic discourse, the Lord has been insistent that the eating of His Body and drinking of His Blood is sine qua non for eternal salvation.[7] There is a materiality about human existence. If it were not, then the good Lord would not have required physical proximity as the means of our reproduction. But without a doubt, this pandemic is more than just a human health issue. It has psychological ramifications for in terms of mental health, there is a recognition that prolonged isolation has had a deleterious effect on the state of mind. As paranoia deepens, behaviours have changed.
Beyond the preservation of life and the promotion of psychological well-being, the fear we have built up may be indicative of how far-removed God is from the world. There is scant consideration given to the spiritual damage caused by the extended deprivation of the Sacraments. True, a priest, now Bishop emeritus, used to remark that the poor Devil gets blamed for everything and as Freud supposedly observed that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, we accept that not everything has to be spiritual.
But as this scourge stretches, we may have appeared to ignore how insidious “evil”[8] has insinuated its way into how this plague has been formulated as merely a human health issue. The preservation of the body has become an absolute instead of it being a relative principle for the organisation of life. Satan must be smirking on the side. He would have accomplished his mission because we have forgotten that our ultimate end lies in eternal life with God. Furthermore, stringed together like a chain of beads of a rosary from hell, the numerous botches of this blundering illegitimate government has done nothing but distracted our attention from this cosmic battle taking place before our very eyes.
If the Eucharist is our food, our viaticum to eternity, the denial of it would be one of Satan’s primary pursuit. And we seemed to have settled comfortably into an arrangement without the Eucharist which begs the question if Holy Communion was really necessary for salvation in the first place or was it merely a token. A couple of days ago, we celebrated St John Vianney. He said, “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us”. This pestilence has taught one thing. The Eucharist is not a luxury. It is life. God who loves us so much gives us nothing more priceless than the Body and Blood of His Son. We need this divine bread and drink so that our souls will not starve to death. There is nothing greater than the Eucharist; nothing can bring us to heaven except this Bread and Drink of eternal life.
[1] Tony Star/Iron Man to Steve Rogers/Captain America on
Nick Fury: “He is a spy, Captain. He is the spy. His secrets have secrets”.
[2] William Wordsworth, The Virgin. “… Woman!!
above all woman glorified. Our tainted nature’s solitary boast; Purer than foam
on central ocean tost…”.
[3] Preparation for death or considerations on the
eternal maxims. By St Alphonsus de Ligouri.
[4] CIC, #1752.
[5] Taking a healthy attitude of respect and honour
toward duly elected government and in our case, obey the government’s health protocols
and safety restrictions, etc.
[6] Meaning, it is hopeless. But more than that, it is
also disembodied.
[7] Firstly, John does not use the word “Soma”
(body) which is used in the Synoptic Gospels. Instead, he uses the word “Sarx”
which denotes real, physical flesh. Furthermore, he does not use the word “Phago”,
to eat which can be used figuratively as in the example of Bart Simpson, “Eat
my shorts” to mean “get lost”. John chooses a more earthy
word “Trogon” which hints of “chewing, masticating
and gnawing”. How much more real can one get in terms of the
necessity of the Eucharist for eternal life?
[8] I feel uneasy using this word “evil”
which perhaps suggests that Satan has won. He has pulled off the greatest feat,
that is, to convince us that he does not exist.
