[Oe List ...] Thursday Last Supper

Tue Apr 3 20:33:19 EDT 2012

Liberally slapping around phrases that are common in this listserv remembering Jon Elizondo's comment (forgot how he phrased it) that he did not understand all the RS1 terms in emerging generation songs when he was singing them, but remembered them and found them useful in his later years.

So here goes.  The usual caveat: curious, welcome, not, meet you at the bend!

j'aime la vie

-----Original Message-----
From: jrvergarajr2031 <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To: editor <editor at saipantribune.com>; Mark_Rabago <Mark_Rabago at saipantribune.com>; jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>
Cc: NAFAUM <NAFAUM at Yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 8:20 am
Subject: Thursday Last Supper

TheEucharistic feast

Irian Jaya is the western Indonesian half of the island morepopularly known as Papua.  MichaelRockefeller disappeared in its jungles while on a natural resource expedition,suspected of having shared his bodily substance over the communal bone fire.

Captain Cook visited the islands of Tonga and named it theFriendly Islands.  Cook's company was fetedlavish food beyond their girth's normal intake. They were to stay a full moon but decided unannounced to leave early,much to their host's dismay.

The "friendly" hospitality tendered by the nativeswas to fatten the sailors for an eventual sacrificial date at the dining table.  That would have been one orgy savored aroundthe world!

"Cannibal" is our pejorative term of folks whodelight in adding the human flesh to their culinary options.  The evolution of our humanity has declared thepractice a heinous crime though we would be dishonest if we do not acknowledgeour quiet siding with Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter of Jodie Foster's 1991Oscar-award winning movie, The Silence ofthe Lambs, in its last frames asthe famed Psychiatrist prepared for his dinner. There is also the Tonga story, not uncommon in the Pacificislands, that speaks of poor parents visited unexpectedly by the island'ssovereign taking their only daughter to the sacrificial fire so the sovereignmay feast.

We often look down on "primitive ignorant pagans"who indulge in the practice, until we partake of one of Christendom's highestreligious rituals and hear with discomfort uttered words such as, "this ismy body and my blood, for you; eat, drink, all of it, in remembrance of me".  OK. There is the transubstantiation and consubstantiation debate but that istheological hair splitting.   ReformationEurope tried sugarcoating the ritual by declaring it as just a symbol, but Rome'sorthodoxy did not let go of "the real body and blood" claim decidingthat the elements of the Eucharist are the actual physical presence of theChrist Jesus.

We do not deign navigate on the reefed terrain of themwaters, but "cannibalistic" is not a common reference term in anyBasilica, yet I heard it used in West Africa against the oft-repeated westernmissionaries' accusations of sensual uncouthness!

Indeed, unembodied love is nothing but sentimentality.  Philosophyin the Flesh is more than just the title of a book.  Spirit of the hairy-fairy variety is figmentof the imagination.  Life sans physicality is no life at all.  "Existence precedes essence," is anoft-quoted philosophical phrase, and the Judaic word for "spirit" is thevery real and sensual ruah, the wildwind of the desert!

The unconditional giving (liturgically called"sacrifice') of one's self, promoted in the Holy Week story of the JesusChrist journey as a human model worth replicating, has been the essence of theChristian Faith since Christmas replaced Rome's Bacchanalian Orgy, consecratingin its place the common meal of the 'breaking of the bread and the pouring outof the wine'.  I grew up with the imageof the trembling priest raising the elements with much holy dread.  The act symbolizes nothing less than thesacrifice of one's total life's expenditure on behalf of another.  "Nolove is greater than this ... " is the scriptural line.

We're moving away from our carnivorous dietary habits, anddefinitely frown on its cannibalistic expressions, but we have also becomeanti-sensual in our transcendence.  Wesided with Queen Victoria's Frenchified fragrant earlobe cover-ups asmissionaries draped the Pacific Islanders with long bales of cotton to hide thefeminine ankle and veil the masculine torso.

The Seder meal of that long ago Passover dinner in the UpperRoom in Bethany is unequivocal in its singular message: "this is my body,... this is my blood."  It is thesense experience of embodied sight and hearing, taste and touching, smell andthe whole gamut of sensuality that constitute the core of human existence, andthe treasure that we share unconditionally one to another!

The economic pole is foundational in the social process,preceding political organization and cultural significance.  Its iterative dynamic of resource utilization(natural, human and technological), engaging human means, force, systems, andcreated technologies to produce goods and services that are distributed toeffectively meet needs, constitutes our humanity.  The intrinsic value of human survival and thewillful expenditure of physical existence supersede the current addiction atthe altar of monetized virtues and values foisted under the sovereign rule ofour financial institutions, with the collusion of our legislative bodies, andthe bolstering of our educational fountains.

Irian Jaya students live in my building but I have notnoticed them sitting much around any bone fire. In fact, I caught one of them humming Amazing Grace in the elevator. 

The lifted Eucharistic elements in the meandering river ofconsciousness across the wide expanse of the land of mystery inviting us to themountain of care while navigating the sea of tranquility hold the summm bonum of our being: "this ismy body, this is my blood, that is given for you."

 Jaime R Vergara

All of yesterday, thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it be!

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