IS THIS GOD?

Envoy Magazine ^ | Dave Armstrong

[big'ol_freeper]

It looks a whole lot like wine and bread to the naked eye. But...if you sent it to a testing lab, do you know what the scientist's report would say? It'd say that the wine is wine, and the bread is bread...although it might question whether or not that stiff little wafer qualifies as bread.

I held aloft a golden chalice, gazing upwards at it, performing one of the central liturgical rituals of the Mass, in which the consecration of the wine takes place. But my attitude was not one of reverence or solemnity. I possessed neither the eyes of faith, nor the traditional Christian understanding of the Blessed Eucharist. I was not standing at an altar, let alone in a church. Nearby, my friend and frequent evangelistic partner was neither kneeling, nor bowing his head, nor making the sign of the cross. He was chuckling.

I wore a mocking, sarcastic scowl, just as I wore a mockingly makeshift priestly robe. I looked as ridiculous as the cowardly lion wearing his “king’s robe” in “The Wizard of Oz,” for I was not a priest, or an ordained clergyman of any sort. I was a non-denominational, Evangelical Protestant, lay missionary. My friend (a former Catholic) and I were making light of the gestures and rituals of a priest saying the Mass. This was in the late 1980s, several years before my surprise 1990 conversion to Catholicism.

Link to article:

• IS THIS GOD?

[Pistias]

sigh

[drstevej]

***if only the wafers tasted better:***

====

You have no taste. This post is puerile.

[The_Expatriate]

Puerile? Does that mean my post is in serious danger of being molested by a priest?

[drstevej]

Glad you own a dictionary. I do think your question to be rhetorical and again puerile.

[The_Expatriate]

I was aware of the Latin origin of the word without the help of a dictionary, thank you very much.

I honestly can imagine few things more childish than believing that having the local shaman uttering a few words of mumbo-jumbo will turn bread and fruit juice into the spirit of the Almighty Creator of the Universe (whom the worshippers then proceed to consume!) and ridiculing such superstitions is the job of responsible adults in teaching people to, in Paul's words, "put away childish things."

Were a South Pacific tribe reported to believe that saying a few words over mango pulp would turn it into the Great Spirit of the Sky, I have no doubt that most Christians would snicker at how 'primitive' the natives were for holding to such ideas. True puerility is refusing to recognize one's own superstitions as such.

[drstevej]

Ex - I am not a Roman Catholic. I have a PhD in Reformation studies and have debated RCs on the issue of transubstantiation on these threads frequently. Having said that, I still believe your pictoral post was puerile and in bad taste, likewise the stereotypical comment regarding child molesting.

[The_Expatriate]

Taste is, well, a matter of taste, and humor is often the best way of making a point. Naturally some people will appreciate that humor less than others.

As for your second remark, let me point out that stereotypes are quite often simply exaggerated manifestations of a fundamental truth. If the shoes of the fisherman fit...

[drstevej]

A teenager may think letting gas in public is humor, too. Stereotypes may indeed contain a core of truth yet it is the guilt by association that makes stereotypical humor inherently unloving and a cheap shot. [Note I didn't say 'Teenagers think letting gas in public is humor.' which would be a stereotype and unfair.]

Take some Bean-O.