The lines in St Patrick’s Breastplate "Christ in me when I sit down / Christ in me when I arise" take on a new significance in the light of the Ritual of Solidarity. Whatever they may have meant for the ancient saint, living outside the halls of earthly power, they are deeply challenging to many eating practices today. I’m looking forward to reading your book, David.
Yes, I think it also says, "Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in the eye of everyone that sees me,Christ in the ear of everyone that hears me." Quite an extraordinary and perhaps unsettling expression of embrace. I hope you enjoy the book.
A beautiful piece Mark! Thank you. Your embodied contemplation on the Lorica brought it right in, and I deeply appreciate the introduction to Argo Pärt.
David, I really love the way you frame these embodied sacred rituals as "exits".
The main reason I go to church is to partake in the Eucharist--the Great Thanks Giving. For me communion contains the possibility for salvation because we do not forget that Jesus was murdered by the state and religious authorities because he spoke truth to power. This is a deep embodied invitation to remember, to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of the Body of Christ--a crucifixion that has never ceased. In that remembrance, you are invited to witness, to find courage (heart-fullness), and to carry on the resistance. Jesus's body, "broken for you" is a powerful remembrance as you consume the bread and wine with others, all reminded to awaken and live without forgetting injustice.
I have so much trouble with the substitutionary atonement orientation that lurks in communion liturgies, as well as much of the wording surrounding Easter. Taking the eucharist feels like both an act of historic witness and a taking in of the reality that the Way of Love and relationship is not the easiest path, but it is true. We are "saved" by attending to the reality of Jesus' message and by moving toward the door to exit from the ways of the world around us that conspire to separate us from that reality, including a lot of bad "religion".
This is beautifully put Michelle. Are you Catholic or Anglican, or something else? I grew up very low protestant where "communion", as it was called, was often kept rather marginal. But for my Catholic friends it was the main event. I read a wonderful book by William Cavanaugh on the Eucharist, where he said (quoting someone else, I think), that is formed a political body aside from the state: "a circle where the circumference is nowhere and the centre point is everywhere."
I wonder if the idea of the bread and wine as the body and blood contributed to a religion of personal salvation and moved it gradually away from a religion of ethical communal transformation. I also suspect it laid the foundation for making it possible to "administer" that blood and bread through a priestly order. Recently I was listening to James tabor, argue that this idea originates in Paul and makes its way into mark and from there into Mathew and Luke. Speculating that perhaps Jesus never thought of himself on those terms, I wonder if this helped or hurt the mission of Christianity, or both?
Yes certainly, in the popular Christian imagination of today, taking communion or eucharist is quite commonly understood as a mark of entry into a circle of personal salvation. I see this as a sort of dis-incarnation of the ritual. For myself however, I don’t think that bent is intrinsic to the bread/wine-body/blood drama. I think the somatic materiality of it is precisely the thread that draws back to common life, to embodied experience, and to political realities, to political violence indeed. I guess I’d see an emerging officialdom over who can administer what to who as the inevitable religious enclosure of an open social and political practice (though I don’t wish to play the insensible iconoclast: I see how desire for structure presents itself over time).
I’m not familiar with James Tabor, but the argument surprises me very much! The synoptics and John all describe the ritual (or make reference at least, in John’s case), and I think all those texts are thought to be traceable to witness accounts. I can’t see why they would have cause to write Pauline inventions back into things. I also think the ritual is so morbidly strange, that I can’t imagine anyone inventing it in that sort of way.
Hi David, thank you for your thoughts and for sitting with me on this. I've been trying to sit with the ritual, but I can't quite wrap my head around the eating of the body and drinking of the blood. The drinking of Jesus's spirit makes sense and since the spirit dwells in the blood according to judaism, I suppose one can attach those two. Tabors argument is actually more radical, for he believes that with only a few exceptions basically the gospels onward have to be read in light of Paul's thought/theology. The suspicion for the blood and bread tie rises from corinthians. corinthians 1:23 .”23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 Paul has a message not given to him by man as he says and this in particular seems was transmitted to him directly by Jesus. I find it a bit curious that although acts in the opening mentions often the Jerusalem community breaking bread, it doesn't seem to mention any blood /body ritual, It does however mention it in Pauls speech further along. Because Pauls letters are earlier than the finished form of the gospels, the argument runs that we basically have a mix of original sources especially in Jesus's sayings with Pauls theology, which laid the foundation of christianity. The didache from 1st/2 century is quite lovely and runs a different idea surrounding the eucharist. but of course was not canonised https://legacyicons.com/content/didache.pdf the
Hi Natalia. Sorry to be so slow getting back here. The week has almost defeated me.
James Tabors argument doesn’t chime with my reading of the texts or their contexts, but I’ve not read anything by the man himself so I’ll pass by there, with the exception of a few of my own contrary intuitions woven below.
Regarding the strangeness of the thing (“I can't quite wrap my head around the eating of the body and drinking of the blood…”): I have no wish to nudge you toward any other feelings. I expect they may have reasons for being there that are more important than any thoughts here. What follows below are my own thoughts and feelings, for whatever use they me be in sketching your own.
For my own part, I also find the whole thing strange and dissonant. I’d be suspicious of anywhere that felt at home with the idea. I see two threads to the weirdness. One of them I reject as false and the other I keep with me as a powerful stranger.
The false part, for me, would be the sense in which the ritual has tended to be dramatised in many Christian traditions as an appeasement-by-human-sacrifice story, in which I am drinking the blood of a human sacrifice that has been made to appease the violence of a god who wants that sort of thing. I don’t want or believe in any such story, and I don’t find it anywhere in the thought of Jesus or Paul.
The other part, which I keep, is just intrinsic weirdness. I don’t think Paul invented it because I don’t think he was capable of conjuring something so odd, so un-jewish, so horribly taboo from all quarters. He had a generally conflicted relationship with ritual and was a balls-to-the-wall community organiser: it wasn’t at all in tune with his energies to insist on a ritual that would freak everyone out and give diverse communities more cultural dissonance to deal with. I think it came out of horrible proximity to mangling state violence against the bodies of the powerless. I hold the strangeness dear because a drama that calls my own body close to that kind of experience (imaginaly, symbolically, spiritually or however a person wishes to see it) probably should feel strange, dissonant and disquieting.
I love the Didache, and have thoughts but I'd best stop there for now.
Mmmmm. Plenty of food for thought here. I have had my suspicions for some time, on the insidiousness of the TV entering the household, and diverting the meal together away from the table, and into the 'living room'.
There's also something to note, about how kitchens tend to be the 'life of the party' where people end up congregating.
Finally, there's the resurrection of why praying for grace before eating is significant -- so that we may give thanks, for those who are absent, and who isn't with us when we eat, but we carry their ghosts around / spirits in our hearts.
There's a parallel for me between Ivan Illich's habit of lighting a candle at any gathering to represent the person who was absent, and the the old tradition of leaving an unoccupied place at the table in case the Messiah should show up in the form of some stranger.
Perhaps because I was not alive for the world that went before it, I actually kind of the miss the old TV days. At least we used to watch it together. The programs even had set times. It seems almost liturgical now..
In the yoga that I practice, house holding, is also about the mantras and meditation during breathwork. I'm all for lighting candles. And keeping the sacred heart aflame too for many names we hold sacred and give thanks for.
As for TV... pray, tell us the visions worth giving worship to. What stories will weave us closer.
I acknowledge your prod there yes, the TV became a ritual (still is for many).
We must break bread IRL soon -- perhaps March / springtime. These Rituals of Exits, have been more than literal and metaphorical for me these days, and I have notes to share. Table for two or more needed please. Might re-start the Sanctuary Suppers.
The lines in St Patrick’s Breastplate "Christ in me when I sit down / Christ in me when I arise" take on a new significance in the light of the Ritual of Solidarity. Whatever they may have meant for the ancient saint, living outside the halls of earthly power, they are deeply challenging to many eating practices today. I’m looking forward to reading your book, David.
Yes, I think it also says, "Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in the eye of everyone that sees me,Christ in the ear of everyone that hears me." Quite an extraordinary and perhaps unsettling expression of embrace. I hope you enjoy the book.
Yes, I wrote about the Breastplate (from another, musical, perspective) in an article that’s on open access here: https://parsejournal.com/article/performing-the-deers-cry/
This looks fascinating
A beautiful piece Mark! Thank you. Your embodied contemplation on the Lorica brought it right in, and I deeply appreciate the introduction to Argo Pärt.
Thanks, Michelle! I'm actually on a two-month residency at the Arvo Pärt Centre at the moment, and will be restarting my lapsed substack any day!
Thank you Mark for sharing, I love Arvo Pärt but somehow had not heard the deers cry. Looking forward to reading your work.
David, I really love the way you frame these embodied sacred rituals as "exits".
The main reason I go to church is to partake in the Eucharist--the Great Thanks Giving. For me communion contains the possibility for salvation because we do not forget that Jesus was murdered by the state and religious authorities because he spoke truth to power. This is a deep embodied invitation to remember, to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of the Body of Christ--a crucifixion that has never ceased. In that remembrance, you are invited to witness, to find courage (heart-fullness), and to carry on the resistance. Jesus's body, "broken for you" is a powerful remembrance as you consume the bread and wine with others, all reminded to awaken and live without forgetting injustice.
I have so much trouble with the substitutionary atonement orientation that lurks in communion liturgies, as well as much of the wording surrounding Easter. Taking the eucharist feels like both an act of historic witness and a taking in of the reality that the Way of Love and relationship is not the easiest path, but it is true. We are "saved" by attending to the reality of Jesus' message and by moving toward the door to exit from the ways of the world around us that conspire to separate us from that reality, including a lot of bad "religion".
This is beautifully put Michelle. Are you Catholic or Anglican, or something else? I grew up very low protestant where "communion", as it was called, was often kept rather marginal. But for my Catholic friends it was the main event. I read a wonderful book by William Cavanaugh on the Eucharist, where he said (quoting someone else, I think), that is formed a political body aside from the state: "a circle where the circumference is nowhere and the centre point is everywhere."
I wonder if the idea of the bread and wine as the body and blood contributed to a religion of personal salvation and moved it gradually away from a religion of ethical communal transformation. I also suspect it laid the foundation for making it possible to "administer" that blood and bread through a priestly order. Recently I was listening to James tabor, argue that this idea originates in Paul and makes its way into mark and from there into Mathew and Luke. Speculating that perhaps Jesus never thought of himself on those terms, I wonder if this helped or hurt the mission of Christianity, or both?
Hi Natalia
Yes certainly, in the popular Christian imagination of today, taking communion or eucharist is quite commonly understood as a mark of entry into a circle of personal salvation. I see this as a sort of dis-incarnation of the ritual. For myself however, I don’t think that bent is intrinsic to the bread/wine-body/blood drama. I think the somatic materiality of it is precisely the thread that draws back to common life, to embodied experience, and to political realities, to political violence indeed. I guess I’d see an emerging officialdom over who can administer what to who as the inevitable religious enclosure of an open social and political practice (though I don’t wish to play the insensible iconoclast: I see how desire for structure presents itself over time).
I’m not familiar with James Tabor, but the argument surprises me very much! The synoptics and John all describe the ritual (or make reference at least, in John’s case), and I think all those texts are thought to be traceable to witness accounts. I can’t see why they would have cause to write Pauline inventions back into things. I also think the ritual is so morbidly strange, that I can’t imagine anyone inventing it in that sort of way.
Hi David, thank you for your thoughts and for sitting with me on this. I've been trying to sit with the ritual, but I can't quite wrap my head around the eating of the body and drinking of the blood. The drinking of Jesus's spirit makes sense and since the spirit dwells in the blood according to judaism, I suppose one can attach those two. Tabors argument is actually more radical, for he believes that with only a few exceptions basically the gospels onward have to be read in light of Paul's thought/theology. The suspicion for the blood and bread tie rises from corinthians. corinthians 1:23 .”23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 Paul has a message not given to him by man as he says and this in particular seems was transmitted to him directly by Jesus. I find it a bit curious that although acts in the opening mentions often the Jerusalem community breaking bread, it doesn't seem to mention any blood /body ritual, It does however mention it in Pauls speech further along. Because Pauls letters are earlier than the finished form of the gospels, the argument runs that we basically have a mix of original sources especially in Jesus's sayings with Pauls theology, which laid the foundation of christianity. The didache from 1st/2 century is quite lovely and runs a different idea surrounding the eucharist. but of course was not canonised https://legacyicons.com/content/didache.pdf the
Hi Natalia. Sorry to be so slow getting back here. The week has almost defeated me.
James Tabors argument doesn’t chime with my reading of the texts or their contexts, but I’ve not read anything by the man himself so I’ll pass by there, with the exception of a few of my own contrary intuitions woven below.
Regarding the strangeness of the thing (“I can't quite wrap my head around the eating of the body and drinking of the blood…”): I have no wish to nudge you toward any other feelings. I expect they may have reasons for being there that are more important than any thoughts here. What follows below are my own thoughts and feelings, for whatever use they me be in sketching your own.
For my own part, I also find the whole thing strange and dissonant. I’d be suspicious of anywhere that felt at home with the idea. I see two threads to the weirdness. One of them I reject as false and the other I keep with me as a powerful stranger.
The false part, for me, would be the sense in which the ritual has tended to be dramatised in many Christian traditions as an appeasement-by-human-sacrifice story, in which I am drinking the blood of a human sacrifice that has been made to appease the violence of a god who wants that sort of thing. I don’t want or believe in any such story, and I don’t find it anywhere in the thought of Jesus or Paul.
The other part, which I keep, is just intrinsic weirdness. I don’t think Paul invented it because I don’t think he was capable of conjuring something so odd, so un-jewish, so horribly taboo from all quarters. He had a generally conflicted relationship with ritual and was a balls-to-the-wall community organiser: it wasn’t at all in tune with his energies to insist on a ritual that would freak everyone out and give diverse communities more cultural dissonance to deal with. I think it came out of horrible proximity to mangling state violence against the bodies of the powerless. I hold the strangeness dear because a drama that calls my own body close to that kind of experience (imaginaly, symbolically, spiritually or however a person wishes to see it) probably should feel strange, dissonant and disquieting.
I love the Didache, and have thoughts but I'd best stop there for now.
I love your extraordinary new book, David. I've read it twice.
So glad you've enjoyed it Richard! Thanks for sitting with it
Mmmmm. Plenty of food for thought here. I have had my suspicions for some time, on the insidiousness of the TV entering the household, and diverting the meal together away from the table, and into the 'living room'.
There's also something to note, about how kitchens tend to be the 'life of the party' where people end up congregating.
Finally, there's the resurrection of why praying for grace before eating is significant -- so that we may give thanks, for those who are absent, and who isn't with us when we eat, but we carry their ghosts around / spirits in our hearts.
There's a parallel for me between Ivan Illich's habit of lighting a candle at any gathering to represent the person who was absent, and the the old tradition of leaving an unoccupied place at the table in case the Messiah should show up in the form of some stranger.
Perhaps because I was not alive for the world that went before it, I actually kind of the miss the old TV days. At least we used to watch it together. The programs even had set times. It seems almost liturgical now..
In the yoga that I practice, house holding, is also about the mantras and meditation during breathwork. I'm all for lighting candles. And keeping the sacred heart aflame too for many names we hold sacred and give thanks for.
As for TV... pray, tell us the visions worth giving worship to. What stories will weave us closer.
Oh, I'm not advocating the television. Just noticing the different situation today.
I acknowledge your prod there yes, the TV became a ritual (still is for many).
We must break bread IRL soon -- perhaps March / springtime. These Rituals of Exits, have been more than literal and metaphorical for me these days, and I have notes to share. Table for two or more needed please. Might re-start the Sanctuary Suppers.
Yes, lots to share. I have half baked plans to come to the Big Smoke soonish. I'll keep you in the loop