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Food is a Miracle: A Corpus Christi Meditation

Food is a Miracle: A Corpus Christi Meditation

Last updated on: May 23, 2016 at 6:19 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Food is a Miracle: A Corpus Christi Meditation 2016-05-23T18:19:14-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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Those who don’t understand why Christ came in the form of food, have never been poor.

My little town here in the Ohio Valley has a unique, insular culture. I don’t think there’s another place like it in the world. In this town there are two major factions: the poor, who are born locally and are usually Protestant, and the Catholics, who have jobs at the local university and are most often middle class or above. I am poor and Catholic. A great many of the Catholics in this particular town view poverty as a form of leprosy. They call us lazy and presume we’re on drugs. They’ve said in no uncertain terms that they are blessed by God for their obedience, in having safe homes and enough to eat. I’ve been lectured on how sinful I am for accepting government aid for my poverty. I’ve had Catholic neighbors stage elaborate conversations in my earshot about how disgusted they are to live with people that poor in their very neighborhood. They really do view me as accursed by God, and for all I know, they’re right.

Those of us who are cursed by God live for the fifth of the month. The fifth is when the SNAP food aid is renewed for the month, and all the accursed descend on Aldi and Wal Mart– all of us together, the moderately poor who use precious gas money to drive there as well as the very poor who take the bus and drag their heavy burdens back in cloth bags. Bearded men in camo fatigues descend from the mountains, and exhausted mothers bus up from downtown with children in tow. The Amish, who can’t afford to farm very much in the Ohio Valley, have permission from their leaders to ride up together in a van driven by a hired driver. The people from the mountains have such thick Appalachian accents they can barely be understood. The tired families from downtown speak in their own harsh Steel Valley bray. The Amish understand English, but speak a German dialect between themselves. The stockers can barely keep the shelves full of food; the clerks can barely keep order at the checkout. And yet in all the chaos, there’s a certain atmosphere of gaiety. We who are accursed are going to eat well today. We’re going to have a treat before going back to belt-tightening and cutting corners– a frozen dinner, a bowl of ice cream, a piece of chicken with no bones. The feast is short lived and bordered with a fast on both sides, but there is a feast, and for that we are glad. Food means celebration.

Once, about two weeks before the fifth of the month, I met a man who was trying to find a food pantry that would give him something more than plain dry pinto beans and white rice. His children hated beans and rice; beans and rice made them gag. But he was out of work with a bad foot and couldn’t get food stamp aid before the fifth of the month, so he had to go to the food pantry, and the food pantry only had beans, rice and a depressingly small bag of bony chicken– not to mention a can of beets, which neither he nor his children had managed to get down. I wanted to be friendly, so I claimed I loved beans and rice; I traded him a loaf of bread and a large package of hot dogs for three sacks of white rice and three sacks of white beans. My charity wasn’t quite strong enough to pretend to like canned beets, though. Hardly anybody’s is.

Another time, a week before the fifth of the month, we were completely out of food and had no money to buy more. I cried to a neighbor, ashamed to admit I was cursed by God but desperate for someone to talk to. I didn’t know what she would do, and I had no reason to expect anything but the angry lectures I’d gotten more times than I could count. But this woman brought us groceries to last a week, plus a bar of fancy chocolate and a gallon of Haagen Daas. I sat in my kitchen in my pajamas, devouring ice cream, crying and feeling loved. Food means sharing, and giving of yourself so that neighbors might live. Food means kindness. Food is a gift.

Once, a few days before the fifth of the month, we were out of milk and several other staples. We had a dozen eggs; I’d had scrambled eggs for breakfast, and was going to have fried eggs for dinner. I’d walked by myself to daily Mass. I was hungry afterwards, too hungry to walk home, but I couldn’t afford to buy a snack any more than I could fly. Now outside this church there is a statue of Saint Francis, crouched oddly on the ground with one pierced hand outstretched, and I remembered that sometimes the well-to-do Catholics put flowers, notes or coins in the hand. These aren’t donations toward any particular charity, just pious littering, and I didn’t know how I’d get home without help. I went to investigate. There, twinkling in the black bronze hand, were several quarters and a brand new gold dollar. I pocketed them quickly, and went around behind the church. There was another statue there, of Saint Francis holding a bird bath, and sure enough the same pious people had thrown coins into the bird bath— stuffed it so full there was no room for water or birds. I glanced around to make sure there was no one watching, and I scooped the money out. There was enough to buy a small supper and bring milk home to my family, a kiss from Saint Francis for the lepers on food stamps. Food is a miracle.

This week is the feast of Corpus Christi. Imagine what it means, that Christ became food for us to share and consume. Imagine the audacity of God, the impossibly lavish gift. We gather at this table, all of us accursed who walk in exile through the valley of the shadow of death. All languages, all cultures are one here. The rich and the poor, the clean and the lepers, those who bear a curse more visibly than others– together we receive the Bread of Heaven which cannot be thrown to the dogs but is freely given to the accursed. God is our celebration, giving of Himself so that we might live. This is pure love poured out, kindness and self-giving like we have never known. This is the Miracle before which all others pale. This is the Bread of Heaven, and blessed is His name.

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