Soapbox

Jesus Wept

I was just reading about a little girl in New Jersey with severe celiac sprue. Her body cannot digest the gluten found in wheat flour (among other sources) and when she ingests it, the gluten can cause illness, damage the lining of the intestine and lead to bone thinning and malnutrition. I had a very mild form of this when I was a baby, which I apparently outgrew, but not before my mother worried half to death about me.This child’s condition is apparently much more severe, and she reacts to the smallest amount of wheat.

For this reason, as she approached the occasion of her first Holy Communion, her mother requested that she be given a rice wafer instead of one made with wheat. The Catholic church, in all its wisdom and compassion, said “no”.

That’s right. This 8 year old must chose between a lifetime of getting ill every time she takes communion- or a lifetime without communion. Way to go, Pope!

The reason for this gracious and loving refusal to give a girl a communion that won’t make her vomit? The vatican has ruled that all communion bread or wafers must contain some wheat because the bread Jesus ate was wheat.

Is that not the most manure-laden foolishness you have ever heard? I guess critical thinking is NOT a skill they require in seminary.

The bread Jesus ate probably had bits of sand and bugs in it too: should we make that a requirement for our communion wafers? The diciples may not all have washed their hands- must we all forgo washing before church?
This reminds me of Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian” when Brian was running and lost his shoe. The his followers found it and some decided this meant that they too, must cast off their footwear and follow the shoe!

This willful blindness should, I suppose, come as no surprise from a demomination who only recently got around to saying “Oh by the way, turns out Gallileo was right about the whole revolving around the sun thing…our bad. Sorry about all the torture and burnings…” Still it is sad to see yet another example of how people can take what seems to have been a pretty straight-forward message from Jesus: “love God, love each other” and get it so screwed up!

After 2000 years of worship we are left with a child who wants to partake of the Lord’s table but cannot, because apparently, God can’t come into a chunk of Rice! He can come into wheat alright, but rice- no. Won’t work.

Not much of a God then, is he? I mean, really , couldn’t a real God bless a child through a rice wafer, and wouldn’t a loving God want to? Didn’t Jesus anger the pharises because he told people that all those rigid and confining rules of the Old Testament weren’t necessary?

The Catholic church used to insist that the bread truely turned into Jesus’ actual flesh at communion through the power of God. For them now to say that a rice wafer can’t possibly “commune” with God displays an appalling lack of imagination, and of faith.

It also demonstrates the utter failure by the church heirarchy to grasp the core principle behind communion: it’s about God, not about the bread. Bread is, after all, made by man, and the last supper wasn’t about food for the body.

Apparently the church also ruled this way in 2001 with another child who is unable to digest wheat, and her family left the church over it. Wow! Score two for the triumph of rigid adherance to meaningless orthodoxy over actual ministry to God’s children. And the Pope wonders why the numbers of U.S. catholics are declining!!

So when I ask myself that over-used but still relevent question, “What would Jesus do?” I keep coming up with the same answer: give the girl the rice and be happy that she wants to take communion! I mean, if the exact nature of the bread is that important, then you’ve missed the point. As far as I’m concerned, you can have a twizzler for communion, if you want to- it’s your heart that counts.

It’s a God thing, not a bread thing.