After Mass this evening Buster and I headed out for a quick hamburger and somehow the discussion came up about how the Holy Eucharist is sometimes accepted at Mass by someone only to remain unconsumed and spirited out of the church for use in various – always nefarious – ways.
“How exactly,” Buster asked me. “I’ve read that the Eucharist has been stolen for use in black masses – but what do they do with it, actually?”
I don’t like talking about this stuff, but I related a little – that some have put the Consecrated Host upon an “altar” and stabbed it, or sliced it, so as to “stab” Christ. “They believe, as we do, that the Eucharist is the actual, physical Presence, the Body and Blood of Christ,” I explained. “That’s why Wonder Bread and Grape Juice won’t do [nor will the unconsecrated wafers lying on the sacristy shelf of a Catholic church]. They want the Consecrated Host – they know what it is. Sometimes the desecrations can be tearing it up and stomping on it, or doing disgusting things to it. And sometimes the Host is even abused sexually. Just as sexual abuse or rape is about power and control and domination, someone who sexually abuses a Host, sees it as controling and dominating Christ.”
“But, it’s a Gift,” Buster said, “So they only cheat and hurt themselves.”
I was a little confused. “What do you mean, which is the Gift, the Holy Eucharist, or sexuality?”
“Both,” he said. “They’re both gifts, but I’m talking about the Gift of the Body of Christ. Christ gave himself to us – freely – of his own free will. A Gift freely given. If someone takes the Gift and spits on it or whatever – they’re only destroying what was given to them, they are destroying what is “theirs.” They don’t in any way destroy the Giver of the Gift, or lessen the Giver…OR the Gift. So they have no power over it, they can’t dominate it. All they can do is destroy themselves within themselves.”
“Yes,” I agreed. If I freely give you a car, and you decide to smash it up, you’ve lost out, not me. If I give you my life, and you are unappreciative, it doesn’t lessen what I have done, but reveals the void within you.”
“That’s why even during the Passion of Christ, those who wanted Jesus dead could not have victory over him,” Buster mused, picking up on today’s Gospel reading. “So, no matter how they mistreated Him or misjudged Him, or tortured Him…He had consented to it. And so they lost, and He won.” The Power was always His.”
“Right,” I said, wondering what I was thinking about when I was 16 years old.
“And so, these people at the black masses – they have an illusion of power, but the power is always Christ’s, because He is the Gift.”
“Exactly.”
“It doesn’t make me feel any better to think of anyone desecrating a Host,” he mused. “But if they don’t realize that the power they think they have is only an illusion, then really…’they know not what they do.’”
I ordered espresso and wished for whiskey.
“It’s the same, then with the gift of our sexuality,” Buster said, eyeing a brownie sundae on the menu. “That’s a gift, too. Abuse it, and that doesn’t mean you have power over it. Abuse it, misuse it…it actually dominates you.”
“Yes,” I said, quietly. “Why don’t you order that thing? Why don’t you eat some chocolate, or something.”
He did and his mood brightened considerably.
“It’s a shame you don’t want to be a priest,” I said, shaking my head, referring to the fact that he has a push-me-pull-you going on with that idea. “You have something to say, and you’d sing a heck of a mass.”
“They’d hate me,” he said, flicking sloppy hot fudge all around him. “I’d talk about all these things no one wants to talk about.”
I stirred my coffee and thought…kid, you’d be surprised at how grateful some people would be to hear what you have to say.
UPDATE: Rick at Brutally Honest goes deeper.
[brackets added for clarity]
Related: Weakness is Sown, Strength Rises Up
Buster Gets Mystical
April 2nd, 2006 | 2:59 am | #1
I, for one, am listening.
April 2nd, 2006 | 4:56 am | #2
“That’s why Wonder Bread and Grape Juice won’t do.
As a member of a Christian denomination that uses wafers and grape juice I can tell you that I feel just as blessed after taking Communion as I think you do.
We use grape juice because in the Baptist Creed we are told we are not to consume alcohol so we don’t consume it in church.
Who is right and who is wrong? Is either right and the other wrong? I don’t know, but I know I love and worship my Savior who shed His precious blood so that I may have fellowship with Him, the Holy Ghost and the Father and be with Him, the Holy Ghost and the Father throughout eternity.
It is not proper for any person to desecrate any part of any church sacraments. For those who do I can just say they must be evil and need extra prayers. To go into God’s house intending to desecrate something held holy by so many people is showing how brave Satan is getting in this day and age. But then he’s always been that way.
Anyway, I’ve had communion with broken bread, the reasoning being that Jesus broke bread and said it was His body. Do they still make Wonder bread?
Taking Communion, to me, and I hope to anyone else, is a very serious matter. There should be nothing between me and God to prevent the fellowship of Communion.
I guess I’ve said enough, but you have a smart boy there, Anchoress. One who thinks deeply and is blessed with a mother who answers him honestly.
April 2nd, 2006 | 7:52 am | #3
Buster needn’t be a priest for people to listen to him.
The call to serve comes in many tenors and timbres.
Who knows that better than you?
April 2nd, 2006 | 9:47 am | #4
J – I hope you did not take offense at the “Wonder Bread” crack – it was just a toss-off and not intended to offend – if I did offend, please accept my apologies…I just think “Wonder bread” is a funny thing to begin with. And yes, they do still make Wonder Bread…but they don’t say it “builds bodies 12 ways” anymore, I don’t think!
‘
In any case, I was insensitive in not expressing to Buster (and others) that for non-Catholics, how they commune is very serious and meaningful to them, and I apologize for falling down on the job, there. The point I was trying to make was that I’ve never heard of unconsecrated species being used for those ugly, nefarious purposes.
April 2nd, 2006 | 10:12 am | #5
You have a remarkable son, and he’s had a remarkable insight. I can only wish that what he’s realized would be recognized as widely as possible.
April 2nd, 2006 | 11:41 am | #6
Maybe Buster will be that musician who brings glorious music back into our liturgy.
April 2nd, 2006 | 11:43 am | #7
Heh, Gracie, his Elder Brother is the composer. I keep begging him, “please, PLEASE write a new Gloria – PLEASE write a singable, beautiful mass…”
‘
So far, he’s not biting!
April 2nd, 2006 | 12:42 pm | #8
My dear friend Anchoress,
Re:Comment #4
No offense taken then or now and no apology necessary. God bless.
April 2nd, 2006 | 9:45 pm | #9
Buster the Deep
I sit tonight a tad melancholy. Squabbles amongst family members have that effect on me, especially when there’s no easy solution on the horizon. Tis not fun. Not fun at all. Which makes reading The Anchoress tonight all the more
April 3rd, 2006 | 7:34 am | #10
Music can be a very effective ministry. Our own choirmaster, also a composer, carefully chooses the music we present at Mass, and, when he can’t find anything suitable, he writes it.
Watch your e-mail, Anchoress. Over the next few days, if our choirmaster consents, I may give you his e-mail address. He’s written some Mass music I think you’d like. (He reads your blog, too, BTW. Heck, he may decide to contact you himself, for all I know!)
April 3rd, 2006 | 1:45 pm | #11
Anchoress, please don’t say “It’s a shame you don’t want to be a priest.” You don’t know what God has in store for Buster. Buster doesn’t know. I smile because one of my greatest teachers was Deacon Stan Bellanger. He was a Navy “frogman” sent to Japan after the dropping of the bombs. He had 12 children and worked for the auto industry. And God called him to other work.
April 3rd, 2006 | 2:00 pm | #12
Oops. Cut myself off there!
I just think that God won’t waste a guy like Buster on anything less than an important call. And if he thinks that people would hate him, he’s so wrong. Strangely enough, Jesus talked about lots of things that people didn’t want to talk about – and the only ones who hated him were true enemies.
I think that being able to look at things differently, to talk about things that ordinary people don’t consider is a great gift. It’s what Fulton Sheen had. My parents’ parish priest, Fr. Donner, recently died after suffering a heart attack during Mass. I only met him a few times, but I was so impressed by the way he wove theology and story-telling into homilies. I had a couple of “ah ha!” moments because of him.
He was also a gifted musician and artist, although I didn’t find that out until people at his former parishes talked about the stained glass windows and mosaics he designed.
There’s an obituary here, if you’re inclined to read about him. http://www.ctkinggladwin.com
April 3rd, 2006 | 3:29 pm | #13
[...] I caqn’t resist a blog titled after a Kipling poem: The Gods of the Copybook Headings. Authors ‘Publius’ and ‘Brutus’ apparently live in Canada, which is a target-rich environment for any skeptic of liberal nostrums. P & B have created a content-rich environment for readers. Check it out. I found it by chance, via Brutally Honest, who had commented on a post at The Anchoress. Yes, I went surfing today. I couldn’t go swimming because I was waiting around for a boat survey. Posted at 3:29 PM | | [...]
April 3rd, 2006 | 8:30 pm | #14
I was a member of the juice and bread {sometimes crackers were substituted} and no doubt I who served and those receiving felt blessed. We appreciated the significance of the debt paid that we couldn’t pay. We worshiped our Lord in the heightened intimacy of that moment called Communion. We did as the Lord commanded and remembered him until he comes again.
But, with ALL due respect, feeling blessed is not what the Eucharist is about and there is where the difference is.
Jesus clearly taught that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood and he did this without explaining as a metaphor {as he did with other word pictures}. It was so offensive those close to him misunderstood it. He did not stop those who turned away because of this hard thing but only said to those most close to him, Will you leave me too?
The essential matter is not over what the items are, wine or juice, wafer or bit of bread, but what these become, not merely symbol that makes us feel blessed but the flesh and blood of our Lord that nourishes us and apart from which we cannot live. I didn’t say it, He did.
If this is not so, then I have made a grave error because it was for this central reason that I left my Protestant life and ministry position to enter the Catholic Church.
September 5th, 2006 | 3:54 pm | #15
[...] Related: Buster on The Gift Freely Given Ed Morrissey; On the Decision for Martyrdom Kobayashi Maru; The Saints Are Watching: Fear and Faith on the Nightly News neo-neocon; Conversations on Conversion All Things Beautiful Welcome to Saudi America Maternal Optimist; Spiritual Rape Mark Steyn: We Cede Our Values for Free Kathleen Parker; The Religion of Peace at Gunpoint David Warren; Doing the Enemy’s Work Jules Crittendon; Martyrs Wanted [...]
September 10th, 2006 | 9:27 pm | #16
[...] Or perhaps what we see in their eyes is a love greater than death. They are the epitome of the gift freely given, and because their gift is free, nothing can ever claim victory over it. [...]
September 11th, 2006 | 2:32 am | #17
[...] They are the epitome of the gift freely given, and because their gift is free, nothing can ever claim victory over it. [...]
September 18th, 2006 | 11:51 am | #18
[...] Let us mourn Sr. Leonella, but let us also recognise the victory she has won. As a religious vowed to God, Sr. Leonella made a gift of her life, a gift freely given, and (as my son Buster noteshere: If someone takes the Gift and spits on it or whatever – they’re only destroying what was given to them, they are destroying what is “theirs.” They don’t in any way destroy the Giver of the Gift, or lessen the Giver…OR the Gift. So they have no power over it, they can’t dominate it. All they can do is destroy themselves within themselves.” [...]
October 29th, 2006 | 12:51 pm | #19
[...] I almost wish I could take Stein into my family for a while, and let him be precisely who he is, and encourage him to ask questions and drink his milk and tell him he mustn’t write on the walls. I would like him to spend a little time talking metal bands and metaphysics with my deep-thinking and brilliant Elder Son and talking Marvin Gaye and the common sense approach to faith that Buster lives. I’d like to see what his idea of Christians and Christianity-in-general would be after spending a while with my tirelessly-volunteering husband, who sees all service as serving Christ. I’d like to see the column he might write after that. Love trumps flippancy, every time. [...]
March 12th, 2007 | 5:23 pm | #20
[...] of course I don’t mean that adolescents are incapable of faith – indeed, sometimes they can see quite a lot more than the rest of us. I only mean that faith comes naturally to children – but child-like faith, paradoxically, usually [...]
April 17th, 2007 | 5:23 pm | #21
[...] See also: Buster and the gift, freely given. [...]
June 7th, 2007 | 10:26 pm | #22
[...] Buster and the Gift Freely Given Adoration and the Mist, the Veil Weakness is Sown; Strength Rises Up Do you know where the greatest [...]
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