The Banality of Bread and Marriage

Helen Syski sees the secret to marriage contained in Jesus’ vulnerability on the altar.

God loves us too deeply to be without us. His love had to leap to earth into Mary’s womb and walk the earth, Emmanuel. Once here with us, Love could not stand to leave us. Hence the Eucharist is Emmanuel. God with us. Forever. Within.

On the Road to Emmaus two disciples walk away from Jerusalem, disturbed by the crucifixion and all the recent turmoil. Jesus joins them, opens the Scriptures and His heart to them so their hearts can once again burn within. The disciples ask Him to stay with them, Jesus breaks the bread, they recognize Him, and … HE DISAPPEARS!!!!

Now why would He do that?

But no, He did not abandon them.

He is not gone.

He is still with them in the bread.

Jesus has stayed as they have asked. Better yet, He has fed Himself to them, that He may not just stay with them but be one with them.

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As I watched our pastor’s fingers move over the bread and wine in the rite of Mass, this Jesus in the Bread struck me as so vulnerable, so banal, so unnoticeable. It is hard to think of something in this world weaker or less of a statement than a communion wafer. Yet Jesus commands that He, in this vulnerable, tasteless form be placed in the hands and on the tongue of His spouse, the Church.

Jesus is there whether or not we are. He comes whether we are in darkness or ecstasy. He waits in the tabernacle. His presence is the gift. A presence that does not depend on us. We cannot break His promise. This is the basis of the stability, the forever factor, of marriage. Nothing we do can break the other’s vow. Forgiveness and reconciliation become possible because it is forever. This is the gift, the struggle, the beauty of the Sacrament.

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The Eucharist is not just symbolic of marriage in the two becoming one flesh. It is also in the mundane, the ordinary, the banal. Jesus-in-the-Bread is just quietly there, waiting at the altar, in the tabernacle or monstrance. Weak, humble, exposed. Husband and wife are called to be quietly there, called to be weak, humble and exposed to each other. They are to be present always, lending strength through constancy and vulnerability. This is true presence, a true covenant. This is the stuff of miracles of transubstantiation. This man, this woman; still man, still woman, yet Christ.

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