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Someone asked me the other day why Jesus chose bread and wine for the Eucharist. I did a little bit of reading about it, I think it can be summarized like this.
In scripture, the Old prefigures the New. From the beginning-- in His singular, eternal moment of creation, understanding, decision making, and so forth-- God decided to condition people to associate bread and wine with sacrifice, faith, and sustenance.
During Passover, Israel ate unleavened bread-- and in the desert, they also ate the bread-like substance known as manna, which is what physically sustained them. During this time they made great sacrifice-- not without more than a little grumbling, mind you-- with the hope and faith that God was going to uphold His covenant with them. Passover also associated bread with the concept of a sacrificial lamb.
Also during sacrifices, the first fruits of the crops were given-- bread and wine. Additionally, wine was always something to be savored, at the end of a meal.
All of this prefigures Christ as the sacrificial lamb, and also as the bread of life which sustains us. Meanwhile, it's through his blood and sacrifice on the cross that our path to eternal oneness with God was purchased-- the "wine to be savored at the end of the meal", so-to-speak.
I also read, I believe from St. Augustine, the notion that bread is made of myriad individual pieces of wheat, which are all crushed together, moistened with water, then baked in fire.
We are all individual pieces, crushed and smashed, moistened with water through Baptism, then burned with fire-- I'm thinking John the Baptist here, "the one who comes after me will baptize you with fire", kind of a thing. Or the Holy Spirit descending during Pentecost as tongues of fire.
Through this process we are joined together as the Body of Christ, just like how the wheat is joined together as bread.
In other faith-related news, the big diaconate panel interview for me and Ellyn is happening on February 4th, at 9:45 CST. Pray for us! But don't pray for a specific outcome-- rather, pray for the Holy Spirit to work through everyone involved in the discernment process, to have hearts open to God's will.
I had my first meeting with my Spiritual Director-- my priest friend. He was so helpful!
That crazy moment of total abandonment to the Lord, and absolute love for others, which I experienced during Holy Thursday last year-- I had not experienced another moment like that since then, and I had been worrying that I had become "less holy", or deficient in some way. Father explained to me that the moment I experienced has a term: a consolation.
A consolation is a special grace that God sometimes bestows on people, for mysterious reasons. It is not something we earn-- it's a gift, which the Lord chooses to give. I did not somehow instigate or bring it on myself.
He also explained that there is an opposite, called desolation. Even great upper-case Saints wrote about intense periods of desolation they experienced in their lives. The key during these moments is to draw ourselves closer to God; it's easy to pray when we're feeling good and things are going well.
I also had lunch a couple of days ago with my pastor. I can't go into any details, but also please pray for him-- he's had a very tough week. We're both big-time Myers-Briggs "intuitives", so it's hilarious to see the thirty-thousand directions in which our conversations go. One thing he gave me was Pope St. John XXIII: "It's your Church, Lord, I'm going to bed."
Our diocese's psychologist, Emily, told me to surrender in order to rest and sleep. I'm slowly putting the pieces together. I've slept like total junk this week, including being up almost all night yesterday and this morning-- but I think I have the pieces to the solution; I just need to put the puzzle together.
This past Sunday I worked at a pancake breakfast with a fellow Knight, maybe others reading this also know him: his name is Nick, and he's a walking factbook on our Faith, major philosophers, and so forth. The stuff he "just knew" off the top of his head! I learned a lot by just listening to him. So that was another fun conversation I had recently-- another blessing.
The best things in life are lessons in contrast. Like peanut butter and jelly. Or pie à la mode. Or classically-inspired metal compositions. I think as Catholics we get this perfect: we are joyful in hopeful anticipation of sainthood, and praise God with exuberance-- but we simultaneously stand in cosmic, reverent, solemn awe of God, with our candles and our incense and our statues and Latin prayers.
I was trying to figure out the other day why I'm not absorbing our Faith as quickly and as thoroughly as I absorbed, let's say, economics in my twenties. My Pastor asked me, "is it a lack of interest?", to which I replied "Definitely not that." Then the answer hit me the next day: I'm too interested, and want to learn it all at once-- but the volume is so huge, that I flit around too much, not quite sure where to focus my attention.
I ran across a very interesting model in psychology the other day: top-down processing, versus bottom-up processing. I am 100% a bottom-up processor. Apparently this is rather unusual, all told. For example, I was at Mass at "the big church in town". I became hyper-focused on a floral arrangement they had placed next to the altar. Thirty minutes into Mass, I finally noticed the forty-foot tall Christmas tree in the sanctuary. Then ten minutes after that, the probably twenty foot tall crucifix they had suspended from the ceiling since the last time I was there.
Ellyn will say to me, "go into the closet and get the blue box." When I go into the closet, I enumerate each object one at a time: "Is this a box, and is it blue-- no. Is this a box, and is it blue? No." She finally gets impatient, looks herself, immediately picks out the blue box from amongst the clutter, and grabs it herself. I read that most people see the whole picture first, and then selectively focus on details. That's very alien to me!
When I cook food, or do just about anything, I follow the steps, in order, to the letter. Evidently this is not how most people do things: they will just start to cook, then reference the instructions as needed if they have a specific question. Very interesting!
Off to prayer, and then bed.
In scripture, the Old prefigures the New. From the beginning-- in His singular, eternal moment of creation, understanding, decision making, and so forth-- God decided to condition people to associate bread and wine with sacrifice, faith, and sustenance.
During Passover, Israel ate unleavened bread-- and in the desert, they also ate the bread-like substance known as manna, which is what physically sustained them. During this time they made great sacrifice-- not without more than a little grumbling, mind you-- with the hope and faith that God was going to uphold His covenant with them. Passover also associated bread with the concept of a sacrificial lamb.
Also during sacrifices, the first fruits of the crops were given-- bread and wine. Additionally, wine was always something to be savored, at the end of a meal.
All of this prefigures Christ as the sacrificial lamb, and also as the bread of life which sustains us. Meanwhile, it's through his blood and sacrifice on the cross that our path to eternal oneness with God was purchased-- the "wine to be savored at the end of the meal", so-to-speak.
I also read, I believe from St. Augustine, the notion that bread is made of myriad individual pieces of wheat, which are all crushed together, moistened with water, then baked in fire.
We are all individual pieces, crushed and smashed, moistened with water through Baptism, then burned with fire-- I'm thinking John the Baptist here, "the one who comes after me will baptize you with fire", kind of a thing. Or the Holy Spirit descending during Pentecost as tongues of fire.
Through this process we are joined together as the Body of Christ, just like how the wheat is joined together as bread.
In other faith-related news, the big diaconate panel interview for me and Ellyn is happening on February 4th, at 9:45 CST. Pray for us! But don't pray for a specific outcome-- rather, pray for the Holy Spirit to work through everyone involved in the discernment process, to have hearts open to God's will.
I had my first meeting with my Spiritual Director-- my priest friend. He was so helpful!
That crazy moment of total abandonment to the Lord, and absolute love for others, which I experienced during Holy Thursday last year-- I had not experienced another moment like that since then, and I had been worrying that I had become "less holy", or deficient in some way. Father explained to me that the moment I experienced has a term: a consolation.
A consolation is a special grace that God sometimes bestows on people, for mysterious reasons. It is not something we earn-- it's a gift, which the Lord chooses to give. I did not somehow instigate or bring it on myself.
He also explained that there is an opposite, called desolation. Even great upper-case Saints wrote about intense periods of desolation they experienced in their lives. The key during these moments is to draw ourselves closer to God; it's easy to pray when we're feeling good and things are going well.
I also had lunch a couple of days ago with my pastor. I can't go into any details, but also please pray for him-- he's had a very tough week. We're both big-time Myers-Briggs "intuitives", so it's hilarious to see the thirty-thousand directions in which our conversations go. One thing he gave me was Pope St. John XXIII: "It's your Church, Lord, I'm going to bed."
Our diocese's psychologist, Emily, told me to surrender in order to rest and sleep. I'm slowly putting the pieces together. I've slept like total junk this week, including being up almost all night yesterday and this morning-- but I think I have the pieces to the solution; I just need to put the puzzle together.
This past Sunday I worked at a pancake breakfast with a fellow Knight, maybe others reading this also know him: his name is Nick, and he's a walking factbook on our Faith, major philosophers, and so forth. The stuff he "just knew" off the top of his head! I learned a lot by just listening to him. So that was another fun conversation I had recently-- another blessing.
The best things in life are lessons in contrast. Like peanut butter and jelly. Or pie à la mode. Or classically-inspired metal compositions. I think as Catholics we get this perfect: we are joyful in hopeful anticipation of sainthood, and praise God with exuberance-- but we simultaneously stand in cosmic, reverent, solemn awe of God, with our candles and our incense and our statues and Latin prayers.
I was trying to figure out the other day why I'm not absorbing our Faith as quickly and as thoroughly as I absorbed, let's say, economics in my twenties. My Pastor asked me, "is it a lack of interest?", to which I replied "Definitely not that." Then the answer hit me the next day: I'm too interested, and want to learn it all at once-- but the volume is so huge, that I flit around too much, not quite sure where to focus my attention.
I ran across a very interesting model in psychology the other day: top-down processing, versus bottom-up processing. I am 100% a bottom-up processor. Apparently this is rather unusual, all told. For example, I was at Mass at "the big church in town". I became hyper-focused on a floral arrangement they had placed next to the altar. Thirty minutes into Mass, I finally noticed the forty-foot tall Christmas tree in the sanctuary. Then ten minutes after that, the probably twenty foot tall crucifix they had suspended from the ceiling since the last time I was there.
Ellyn will say to me, "go into the closet and get the blue box." When I go into the closet, I enumerate each object one at a time: "Is this a box, and is it blue-- no. Is this a box, and is it blue? No." She finally gets impatient, looks herself, immediately picks out the blue box from amongst the clutter, and grabs it herself. I read that most people see the whole picture first, and then selectively focus on details. That's very alien to me!
When I cook food, or do just about anything, I follow the steps, in order, to the letter. Evidently this is not how most people do things: they will just start to cook, then reference the instructions as needed if they have a specific question. Very interesting!
Off to prayer, and then bed.