While on retreat years ago some priests and I saw the movie, Babette’s Feast, based on a short story by a Danish author, Karen Blixen. Driven from her home by bloody uprisings in Paris, Babette Hersant comes to a remote fishing village along Denmark’s northern coast. For 14 years she works as a maid and cook without complaint for two pious Lutheran sisters, who lived strict lives of prayer, good works, and asceticism. The sisters and the members of their village church have an austere view of God’s creation: they believe that we should “cleanse our tongues of all taste and purify them of all delight, preserving them for the higher things of praise and thanksgiving.”
When Babette learns that she has won 10,000 francs in a lottery, she decides to spend the entire fortune preparing a grand French dinner for the sisters and the villagers. The guests sit quietly during the feast, assuming that by not speaking they can deny what they are experiencing. But one guest, not from the village, is deeply moved by the unexpected elegance and artistry of the banquet. He addresses the guests:
“In our human foolishness and shortsightedness, we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason, we tremble…before making our choice in life, and after having made it, we again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it with gratitude.”
Babette’s Feast becomes a moment of true grace. In the festive spirit of the evening, the guests find themselves resolving old arguments and asking for and eagerly granting forgiveness for ancient hurts; the sisters and their guests experience a foretaste of the paradise for which they have prayed all their pinched and gloomy lives. And Babette experiences a joy she has not known since leaving Paris: unknown to the two spinsters, Babette had been the most renowned chef in the entire city of Paris. Once again, through the gift of her art, she is able to bring joy into the lives of others. At Babette’s triumphant feast, body and spirit, righteousness and happiness are reconciled.
Another name for the Mass ought to be Jesus’ Feast. As the bread of life, Jesus invites us to view the Mass as God’s great feast; a banquet of grace that should fill us with joyful gratitude to the redeemer who sacrificed himself on the cross so that we indeed could experience eternal life.
This Sunday we finally get to the heart of the Eucharistic mystery, which we have been pondering for weeks. Jesus explicitly asserts that, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” Eating and drinking of the Lamb of God can lead us to newness of life here and now.
Jesus didn’t say this just once. He said it so often that I am reminded of the saying, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.” Only this time, Jesus is saying, “Eat and drink for tomorrow you will live forever.”
The difficulty many people have is in what Jesus is inviting them to eat and drink; not bread and wine, but himself. His listeners were comfortable with the notion of bread and fish, which we heard about weeks ago, but now Jesus is really offering his own flesh and blood, which sounds rather repulsive. This image is graphic, offensive and beyond their imagination to grasp. Thus they quarreled amongst themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
The more logical question would be, “Why would he do this?” Think back to the sacrifices that were offered in the temple. To share in the sacrificial meal by eating the roasted flesh of the sacrificial lamb was to become a participant in the sacrifice itself. The victim’s life is given to God and in turn becomes food returned from God to the giver. Those who surrender the life of the victim receive life from the very victim that had been sacrificed.
The bread and wine that is brought forward truly become for us the flesh and blood of Jesus. If you are still skeptical about the notion of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, keep in mind that Jesus never said that the bread and wine would symbolize him. Every time the consecration is celebrated, we are reminded of what he said; “this is my body…this is the chalice of my blood.”
If God could create all that exists out of nothing, who are we to limit what God can do? In the mystery of the consecration, God sends down the Holy Spirit to transform the substance of our gifts into the very being of his son, Jesus, so that we become participants in his sacrifice and are moved by his example to live life to the fullest here and now and do as the guests at Babette’s feast did: forgive, reconcile and celebrate. As Paul points out, the wisdom we have from Jesus must now manifest itself in our daily lives.
To receive the Eucharist, we have to let go of our anxieties, fears, and sins in order to take into our lives and hearts the “bread” that is the life and love of God. But the Eucharist demands more than that; it also demands that we open our hearts and spirits as well so that we be transformed and become what we receive. By inviting us to “munch” on him, Jesus calls us to become his life of mercy, compassion, and reconciliation with and for one another.