Eucharistic Nourishment
Don’t read the “Song of Songs” if you are hungry. Its poetry is full of the aroma of spices and the language of sweetness, and its action is centred around orchards, vineyards, and wine cellars. The lovers constantly compare one another to the humanity’s perennial favourite delicacies: wine, honey, milk, raisin cakes, apples, figs.
At one of the central high points of the drama, the Bride invites her beloved to come into her garden, which is at the same time, his garden, and to “taste its rarest fruits.” (Song of Songs 4:16)
And come he does, accepting her invitation and sharing in the banquet she has prepared: “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk.” (Song of Songs 5:1)
Anyone who has known the joy of hospitality, of labouring to prepare a beautiful meal and delighting to share it with friends and family, can imagine the joy of the lovers in this sharing of the fruits of paradise.
But in the very next verse, the Bridegroom makes a bold move. He turns away from the shared banquet and from his enraptured Bride and calls out to his friends: “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.” (Song of Songs 5:2)
How does the Bride feel about this invasion of her garden, this ransacking of her table, this abuse of her hospitality? The Song does not tell us.
This somewhat bold invitation of the Bridegroom, for all to come and join the feast, is a theme that runs through both Old and New Testaments. It is the cry of Wisdom, who invites the foolish and the ignorant to “come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” (Proverbs 9:5)
It is the vision of Isaiah, who envisions the victory of the messiah as a banquet “of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” to which all peoples and nations are invited. (Isaiah 25:6)
It is Jesus’ parable of the king who invites those on the highways and byways to the wedding feast of his son. (Matthew 22:1-14)
It is the experience of the little boy who gave to Jesus his lunch, and suddenly found his loaves and fishes transformed into a feast for five thousand men, not to mention the women and children. (Matthew 14:13-21)
We usually approach the Eucharist banquet with the intention of being nourished ourselves, body and soul, heart and mind. It is the very flesh of the Risen Christ, food that allows our inner self to grow strong and that enriches us in charity. (Catechism 1392-4; Ephesians 3:16)
But while the physical food that we eat for bodily health becomes incorporated into our substance and our life, always at the cost of its own substantial existence, the Body of Christ is not so much incorporated into us as we are incorporated into Him. (Catechism 1395)
Our Eucharistic hunger, therefore, must always be twofold. We must hunger for Christ, “the bread of God … which comes down from heaven.” (John 6:33a)
But we must also hunger to ourselves become part of his gift, part of his banquet, part of his mission to “give life to the world.” (John 6:33b)
For the Church, the Bride, is called to become one with the Bridegroom who gave himself up for her, (Ephesians 5:25) and this means that she herself must be willing to be taken, blessed, broken and shared.
This twofold hunger is made possible by the twofold mystery of Transubstantiation. In the first instance, if Christ can take bread and wine, fruit of the earth and work of human hands, and make them into the gift of his very self, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, without violating their nature, then we can trust him with our very selves, and trust that he can make us participants in his salvific mission without doing violence to our nature. Moreover, if Christ can take his crucified and risen flesh and make them into true food and drink for mere mortals, then we can trust that he will not let us languish, nor let us be gnawed beyond our limits. His Providence turns all things into nourishment for those who put their trust in him.
“At the wedding feast enlarged to receive the whole world, the bread will not fail, neither the wine… For the desire of the Bridegroom is not only that one drink but that all drink to the point of intoxication.” (Blaise Arminjon)
“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19:9)
Sister Susanna Edmunds, OP is a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. She currently serves the Archdiocese of Sydney as Dean of Studies at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Homebush.