Consummation

 It has always amazed me how sometimes the most miraculous things in life can be the most commonplace. Women have been giving birth and having babies since the beginning of time; there's literally nothing more commonplace. And yet every time I think about all the things that have to come together for a baby to be born into the world, and all the things that can go wrong, I tremble and sigh with awe. God is truly the sovereign Lord of the universe. 

What leads to babies being born? Well, ideally, marriage is the ball that gets things rolling first. Again, I kind of marvel when meditating on the mystery of the wedding feast at Cana (yes, I do pray the Luminous Mysteries) that God Himself in the person of Jesus not only stooped down to become one of us in the incarnation, but actually cares about our lives so much he would accept an invitation to a communal wedding celebration as a guest.

Of course, as most Catholics with even a rudimentary understanding of Jewish custom and tradition know, weddings were not a three hour affair at the local country club and then you go home. They were week-long affairs; at Cana, the celebration was replete with 120-180 gallons of wine in large stone vessels to keep everyone supplied and jovial. This is a overwhelmingly human affair, Jesus the God who became man enters into that affair to be with us. 

Think of how modern men and women plagirize what is meant to be reserved and holy today: we meet, find a few things in common, hook up, and work backwards essentially. We move in together--there is no communal sanctioning or celebration in such an event, just a pragmatic, sloppy slide into cobbling a tenuous life together. We may or may not get married eventually, but even if we did there is nothing 'virgin' about that first night together as husband and wife, nothing mystical--just another day of carnal exchange which now happens to be bound by a legal contract. 

In many ways, this sloppy slide plays out in the ekklesia in the careless, common shuffle for Communion, and our profane attitude reflected in it. We wear common clothes, and do not prepare our bodies and our hearts for what we are about to receive. "They have put no difference between the holy and profane" (Ez 22:26). If we the church are the bride, and Christ the Bridegroom, each encounter in receiving Communion is a sacred consummation. He gives us his flesh which we take into ourselves. Just as in an earthly marriage and what is requires, this marriage between Christ and his people (the church) is not a valid marriage unless it is consummated. "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you" (Jn 6:53).  

This spiritual consummation is not a one-and-done encounter, but weekly, sometimes daily. Just as the sexual act between spouses gives rise to life within us (cf Jn 6:53) and deepens the love between spouses, so too does frequent reception of the Eucharist leads to spiritual life and a deeper love between man and Christ. Just as in our counterfeit offerings of our bodies to another to whom we are not betrothed we profane the temple of the Holy Spirit, so to do we profane and "eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves" when we enter into this consummation unworthily. 

The bridal chamber where the consummation takes place (chuppah) is the place of intense and ecstatic intimacy (knowing) between bridegroom and bride. On this climactic night, the Bridegroom is escorted by the "sons of the bride chamber" (Greek--huioi tou nymphonos)--that is, his closest confidants (the apostles, and those who stand in succession to them)--to the chuppah. And it is we, his bride, who are called into the chamber to experience this consummation, in which He gives us His flesh to partake in.

There is a reason Yahweh speaks of Israel as his bride to whom He has married (Jer 3:14). There is a reason the Song of Songs paints such a sensual, fleshly portrait of intimacy with the Lover. There is a reason St. Paul speaks of the relationship between Christ and His Church as that of the love and submission between husband and wife (Ephesians 5). 

Marriage is more than a contract, more than an agreement which can be broken. It's validity, it's lifeblood, the ratifying of the contract depends upon consummation--a fusion of flesh, and this is the nature of Eucharistic communion. In it we partake in the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. It is not for everyone, because it is not profane or common, but exclusive to those disposed towards its worthy reception. In it we become one bread, one body, one spirit. One cannot get any closer to the presence of the Lord than during this moment when we become One Flesh with the Bridegroom Himself. It is a moment of profound privilege and intimacy reserved for those who are called to His chamber. We do not "think and speculate" in this moment about the Lord. We TASTE AND SEE the goodness of the Lord (Ps 34:8).

Satan has his work cut out for him in the perversion and debasement of the sexual act during his reign here on earth. But he does it, why? Because in deforming the meaning and act of sex as properly understood, he can obscure our understanding of true spiritual consummation--what it means to eat the flesh of the Son of Man! If we don't understand what sex is and what it is for, our telos is reduced to a temporal, sterile, material act of self-fulfillment rather than an eternal, fruitful, profoundly spiritual act of self-abandonment. And if we don't know what committed, chaste, fruitful, selfless sexual intimacy is, is it any wonder we have adopted such a casual, profane, and presumptuous posture in the Communion line?

Just as I find it a marvel that the most profound miracles in this world--like the birth of a baby or the love between a man and a woman--are so common to human experience, so to that the Son of God enters into our existence so sensuously in Holy Communion, that we are commanded to feed (literally, gnaw in Greek: trogo, τρώγω) on Him to generate new life in our spirit. Almost profane verbiage, yes? An intimacy that was once otherwise unthinkable and unattainable has become the most profound miracle this side of Heaven. For the man who knows he is not called to fast while the Bridegroom is with him, who experiences this consummation in Holy Communion, the seemingly revolting and profane has become holy.