The Unbroken Covenant, Koshering Meat, and Salt

A Reprint

Deep in the recesses of the home, a Rabbi stands and observes the process of koshering meat. He is but one link in a chain of watchful, careful observance- from the time the animal is innocently chewing its cud in the gentle, high grass, to the time of leading by the rope to the place of slaughter, to the time now when the meat is having its blood drawn out to clean and purify the flesh. The Rabbi watches intently as the pearly-white, tiny pebbles of sea salt are rubbed into the surface of the meat, and the butchered animal is slowly transformed into clean nutrition for the community. The salt begins its important work, pulling the blood into itself and bleaching it so that it is changed in its essence. The salt leaves the meat different than it was, makes it able to be used not only to nourish the bodies of the family, but to nourish the liturgy of faith, to incarnate the metaphysical truths and the remembrance of a saving God. The shadows fall over the Rabbi’s face as he smiles at the family leaned over in attention at the process, and turns to step out into the bronze light of late afternoon.

As the Rabbi shields his eyes from the diffused light of sunset, he picks his way among the crowds of the market, making for the cool peace of his own home. He sees salt again, the piles in the bins making him feel suddenly thirsty; salt seems to be pressing in on his consciousness. He gives into its demands, and starts ruminating: salt, that spice that is not a spice, alone a mineral in the spice markets, its very color demanding attention, its very properties of bleaching and helping to keep the heart beating, drawing other substances into itself and changing them forever; its association with the primordial environment of the sea; its special and essential job of preservation. Thinking of preservation, other images crowd into his mind: the furtive look back of the wife of Lot and the resulting woman-pillar. What a beauty of horror she must have looked, her longing expression and the clutching hands, the delicately flared nostrils in the purity of white; the weeping of her daughters surrounding her form like the whispering of the angels; and the whitened flats near the sea that were once Sodom and Gomorrah, nephillim-sized white plates of sulphur and salt. He thinks of Lot’s wife, standing until her form fell back, piece by piece, into the earth, a brutal reminder that too much attachment to the things of this world is the herald of death, and that God’s wrath is not to be taken lightly. The Rabbi feels the slight fear of the encroachment of another world, of the Other; and as he shivers slightly in the warm, pink air of languid twilight, he remembers also the humble prescence of preserving salt, functioning symbolically in the Covenant of Salt between God and Jacob’s children in Numbers 18:19, the covenant that will last forever.

In time immemorial, men would meet, facing eachother across the dancing flames, and amongst the patter of soft words, one man would rise and take some of the salt from the pouch kept around his belt. Hand held out, with the precious mineral cupped in his palm, he ceremoniously pours the grains into the pouch of the other man. Then the other man would do the same, their salts intermingled and impossible to separate. If one of the men came later to ask to break the covenant, he would be met with this saying: “Yea, it can be broken only by retrieving each of your grains of salt from my pouch”. Impossible. It was an unbreakable vow, much like the making of a child.

In the far reaches of the history of his people, the Rabbi knew that the true God had made this same covenant with the priests of Israel: that they may receive a portion of the gift-offerings the Israelites brought to the Lord of Hosts. This was in the time of the desert, when the temple was new and was nomadic, when Moses had to veil the brightness of his face and Aaron’s budded staff still lay in the temple recesses; when the Lord came to Moses’ tent as an intimate friend who wishes to speak openly, and all the Israelites, seeing the cloud descend on the tent, would rise, stand and fall prostrate at the entrances to their tents, facing the tent of the Lord’s visitation.

The Rabbi’s face grew bright, a pale remembrance of Moses’ face, as he lived for a minute or two in that glorious history and remembered the brightness of the Temple in Jerusalem, with the priests like bees coming in and out of the entrances. Then the Covenant of Salt remained, it was unbroken. But where is the reality of that Covenant now? The Temple suffocated underneath the soils and buildings of later ages, the Mercy Seat hidden in some mountain cave, the Ark perhaps sleeping in the earth, the priests flown and scattered like the rest of the Israelites: these were dark remembrances- where are God’s grains of salt? And ours? Until each grain is recovered, the covenant stands, like the covenant with David, “that his kingdom will remain in his line forever”. And we Israelites, were we not called “a nation of priests”- was not a covenant made with the priests, as our representatives, was it not made for all of us?

The sun gathered the ends of its robes and passed down to the other side of night, and the Rabbi did likewise. His door closed softly with a melancholy sound, a muffled sigh in the dark.

Many miles away, the sun was just rising and prodding at the temples of a priest who looked up, extinguished the tallow candle on his desk, and bent down again to write:

So you wish to stray and be lost?
How much better I do not also wish this.
Certainly, I dare say, I am unwelcome. But I listen to the Apostle who says: "Preach the word; insist upon it, welcome and unwelcome." Welcome to whom? Unwelcome to whom? By all means welcome to those who desire it; unwelcome to those who do not.
However unwelcome, I dare to say: "You wish to stray, you wish to be lost; but I do not want this," for the One whom I fear does not wish this. And should I wish it, consider his words of reproach: "The straying sheep you have not recalled; the lost sheep you have not sought."
Shall I fear you rather than him? Remember we must all present ourselves before the judgment seat of Christ.
I shall recall the straying; I shall seek the lost. Whether they wish it or not, I shall do it.”*


He was thinking hard, to the point of sweating, on his sermon for Holy Mass the next day. In the child-light, the cheerful brightness of the morning, the sheen of perspiration made him look pearly-white, yet earthy and not transcendent. But this belied the man’s spirit, for he was aflame with the love of his Master, rejoicing as each word fell on the paper, like so many drops of blood. It was if the sweat of his prayer of the spirit, the never-ending prayer enjoined upon him by the words of St. Paul, purified and cleansed him, and left him as both nourishment and purifier of the flock entrusted to him.

“You are the salt of the earth”, the light of the sun said as it caressed the face of the concentrating priest.

*St. Augustine, Sermo 46, 1-2: CCL 41, 529-530

Tony

The picture is at ten percent. There he is, a figure among many, slivered in the crowd before Mass begins, and yet my eyes fall on him in particular. I suppose it is because he isn’t quite like the others. There isn’t the cake-beater business of the mothers in their unused heels, or the cowboy-nonchalant air of the single men, or the deer-in-the-headlights look of the single women: instead, this man shuffles, and looks down; his clothes are dark and non-descript, his feet like lead upon the dirt in the parking lot.

The picture is now at thirty percent. I notice now that he is shuffling and looking down because he has a little hand in his own. He is taking care of a little child; but intuitively, you can tell he is not the father, because he is taking such care with just this little one, as if this tiny blonde boy were the only child left in the world, the air of a 'special job'. I notice now, too, at this closer range, that he has a large growth above the right eye, like a dark brown cauliflower; this gives him a tree-like look, and I feel slightly repulsed. But the child looks at him with love and confidence.

The picture is now at sixty percent. He sees my little children, and slowly shuffles over with his small charge. “I’m Tony”, he says, “and this is William Thomas.” His clothes are warm in the warm day, and they are slightly dirty. Tony has a few teeth left, but he smiles a big smile nonetheless. There must be some second sight that children have, because my children respond gently and with security, like small flowers in the breeze. They don’t ask me about his mole or his teeth. He wants to show me the bay leaf tree, and smells it. I feel as comfortable with him as with the children; I am as warm inside as he must be in his warm fleece coat.

The picture is now at sixty-five percent. When Tony sees me the next time, a few weeks have gone by; but he lights up like an old friend. He is with the children again in the playground, and he tells me that he lives on the retreat grounds and is the nanny for the children. He smiles, not proudly, not in any way. Just smiles. He brings picture books for the children in church, who are suffering through each minute: after all, they have no sense of when all this sitting and standing and kneeling will end. They don’t know what a minute is, and Tony knows that.

The picture is now at sixty-eight percent. Tony wonders why we aren’t always there on Sunday, but he makes no judgment. He acts toward me and toward the children as he always does; the funny thing is, he does not seem to interact with certain people- it seems the more cowboy-nonchalant or beater-business, the less.

The picture is now at sixty-eight point five percent. I know that I know very little about Tony; for instance, why did he lose his teeth? But what I do think is that he is a Little One, there is a certain light around him, like white glow of the lamb in the green field, innocently standing out next to the large, off-white and black sheep, creatures full of their wool and their purpose. I do know that he has nothing, no power, no ambition to speak of, but of service. And I believe (I don’t know if I am right or wrong) that he brings something of Christ with him, without his knowledge of it. I do know that he seems to be at the top of the Right-Side Up Kingdom in this upside-down world.

I will never reach one-hundred percent, not ever. God only knows a person so well. It is like the problem of parallel lines in Euclid: the closer they get, the farther one is to calculating where they meet- and you are told that they never come together, else the whole structure of geometry must change. But perhaps, God's universe is truly Lobachevskian, in that the parallel lines do, finally, meet: in eternity. And there I hope to rejoice in Tony's glorious court.

To My Shepherd

The following is a real letter written by a parishioner whose family roots in the local church run generations deep. He writes in response to an edict by the local bishop. Names and place names have been taken out-but unfortunately, this beautifully written letter could be apropos in many dioceses around the country.

Dear Bishop,

Our parish bulletin recently has published your order that we may no longer kneel at the “Ecce Agnus Dei…” or upon returning to the pew after receiving communion. It seems that another cherished and permissible custom of the people, of long and continuous practice, has been eliminated.

The publication of the notice included no mention of Cardinal Arinze’s Responsum of June 5, 2003. No supporting documentation, based on the authoritative teachings of the Church, as to why it is a better thing to eliminate the continuous custom of kneeling at these times has been provided. While we are ordered to give up our cherished customs, you and the priests of the Diocese reserve to yourselves the right to pick and choose which liturgical norms of the Church you will follow. Your picture on the front cover of the February Diocesan paper is ample evidence of this.

We must not kneel at our accustomed times, but other Diocesan parishes are permitted to celebrate Mass without kneeling at all. In at least one parish the precious Body and Blood is passed from person to person at Communion and in other parishes the words of consecration are tampered with. You know this, and you also know that nobody is publishing explicit directives to stop these practices.

In our own parish, the use of chalice veils and communion plates is banned. Priests refuse to genuflect at the consecration, others leave the sanctuary for the Kiss of Peace at every Mass, unapproved liturgical texts are continuously used, the people have been told not to make the sign of the cross at the end of the Penitential Rite, the Gloria can be chanted only once a month, and then only on the first Sunday of the month at 11:00 am. Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist appear at every Mass. The sacred vessels are rarely if ever purified by the celebrant. Except for an uprising of the people, the altar bells would have been eliminated some years ago.

The Sacrament of Confirmation has been a real trial for us. Through approving remarks and explicit directions, you and your Office of Divine Worship, in cooperation with Diocesan trained catechists have taught our children that they shouldn’t genuflect before the Real Presence, (bowing is the current fad), rock and roll and rap music, modified liturgical texts, and clapping and whistling are all appropriate to the Sacrament of Confirmation. You refuse to meet with concerned parents to discuss the matter. Even as many of you near the end of your active ministries, you, your Office of Divine Worship, and your priests, have the audacity to place yourselves between our children and their parents. You actively pursue the destruction of the last vestiges of the customs and spirituality that our families have handed from generation to generation for centuries.

Your generation is the generation that taught my generation. You taught us that with the advent of Vatican II, the dark veil of rigid authoritarianism, blind obedience, and silly guilt inducing rules had finally been lifted from the Church. We would all experience a great age of enlightened spirituality and unity based on freedom, diversity and respect for local customs. No more medieval European chains would bind us. No more fish on Friday!

And what of your legacy? You, your priests and administrators leave the scene disrespecting popular piety and family traditions. Diversity is a cover for disobedience. Tolerance does not extend to those of a traditional mind, who only ask some space in the Diocese, in the same way that space has been given to groups of various cultural and gender identities. You and your priests use your status in the Church to induce obedience to silly rules disconnected from tradition and reason. In the end, you leave us with the one thing that your generation claimed to hate most – blind obedience, supported by guilt. Except for blind obedience and the guilt associated with not following your directives, how else can we stand when our hearts and souls tell us to kneel?

In time, a new Bishop will come to our Diocese. If he comes to our parish, he may see everyone standing at the times you have mandated. But there are things he will not see - he will not see that some are standing because they don’t believe there is any Real Presence to kneel before, some are standing physically but kneeling in their hearts and souls, some stand so as not be ostracized as troublemakers, and others are standing for no particular reason other than the fact that everybody else is. The new Bishop will not see something else – he will not see the parishioners who are in the neighboring Diocese for an Indult Mass, or those who tragically have gone to independent chapels or who have simply given up and go no where at all.

The new Bishop will not be able to see these things, but he will see clearly that if the people were acting within the context of organic liturgical development, firmly grounded in the Tradition of the Church, you would not have had to issue edicts to force your personal vision of the liturgy on us in the first place.

Sincerely,

A Catholic

The Right of Love

Today, as I walked beside You, I heard You, teaching me to find You inside, in that place where I rest on You. And I saw it as a work, but a work of love. I thought of Mother Teresa, who always rested in You, by resting in Your Mother’s arms: she said the Rosary, nonstop, through luncheons, through plane flights, through the streets of Calcutta. I thought of Our Lady, and St. Joseph, in the heat and idolatry of the Egyptian cities, in Nazareth, in Jerusalem. Our Lady at Calvary, I thought of her, always resting with You, even in distress. And I thought about how much lower I am than that, than any of Your saints. How can I face the Cross like she did? How can I embrace it with Christ, like she did? I am not of that delicate, yet strong constitution: the constitution of the Virgin, with a heart always with You and in submission to You, a heart always trusting, never wavering, even in the viscitudes and waves of this life.

Then I heard it, inside-like: “Call on the Right of Love”. The Lord God Himself has said He loves us, loves us. And that love, love itself places incredible obligations on the Lover. It is to will the good for the other, to always be there: and in the ineffable greatness of God, to raise us up far beyond what we can imagine or even begin to do ourselves.

“You have the right to call on Me, to ask with all confidence for Me to make you a saint: to make your heart like Mine, to give you grace beyond measure, to do all, to raise you up to your Father’s embrace: this, daughter, this is the Right of Love.”

So, filled with joy, I called on Him in His Own Name: my only confidence is His Love, and the obligations of it that He has bound Himself to: to be a saint, to be so on His strength, for I have less than none (I am a fickle creature); to be made worthy by His worthiness. To be afraid only of what He wishes me to fear.

And He does all this while never truncating our free will. It is a balance so delicate that only God could conceive it.

My heart was bursting! All my life, I have heard things like I’ve just spoken of: He loves us, we can do nothing, etc: but I was fingering a dark wall, never feeling the edges of the door. Today, suddenly, the door was opened from the inside, and light flooded my dark soul. The Right of Love; an Eternal Lover who has bound Himself time and time again to His creatures by Love; it is there, everywhere, for all to see, repeated and shown in a myriad of ways. It seems to me that it requires only a desire, a small, even clumsy, movement of the will to set all aside in order to find Him. Then, in His time, you find that He has been all around you, all along, like an eternal embrace.

How I love Him: yet my love means nothing without Him: and He has given Himself to me, to all of us, and within the Right of Love, to make us His beloved, His saints. The door in the wall is Christ; and the Right to Love is the willingness, the cords of obligation that makes Him a door for us.

He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.