Being Fed

A year ago, little Frederick was here visiting us for a few days. He was about 14 months old at the time. He graciously brought along his mommy and his daddy and most of his siblings. Fredo was still nursing a bit now and then. When he sat at the table to eat with the big people, he needed help with his spoon. He could feed himself, but not enough to really fill his belly to a comfortable level.

Also a year ago this week, my friend Nathan proposed to my daughter Katie who (wisely) accepted. As we discussed wedding plans, the subject came up of the wedding cake, and that the bride and groom feed each other bites of the cake.

These two experiences were fresh in my mind when I was at Mass the following Wednesday evening. That night, I was captivated by the picture of what was going on at the altar rail. It's not like anything happened that hadn't happened before. It's not like anything new was going on. But I just noticed it in a new way. The pastor was feeding people. The pastor put the host into the mouth of the communicants. The pastor put the chalice to their lips and ever-so-carefully tipped it. He fed us.

It really must look pretty goofy to outsiders. A bunch of people, kneeling together, mouths open for someone else to feed them. They're not feeding themselves. They weren't taking the host into their own hands and feeding themselves (although that happens in some congregations). They weren't taking the cup into their own hands and drinking it themselves (although that too happens in some congregations). We were all there, waiting, being fed. I imagined helpless little baby robins in their nest, mouths open, waiting for mom and dad to return and place the nourishment into their little beaks, since they can't do it for themselves.

Y'know, people are rarely fed by someone else. We feed ourselves. That's the way it is! Who gets fed? Babies are fed; they cannot feed themselves. Those who are too sick or disabled (whether by age or disease or accident) are fed by a care-taker instead of feeding themselves. Normally, there's only one other situation where we don't feed ourselves. Lovers will sometimes feed each other. But that kind of behavior is generally recognized as intimate enough that it's not usually flaunted in front of other people (except at the wedding reception). Feeding your sweetie might happen at a private picnic. If it's done in public, though, there's no surprise if other people nearby are rolling their eyes, thinking that the star-struck lovey-dovey stuff will wear off sooner or later.

I suppose there have been some rare occasions where I was out to dinner, and maybe a girlfriend wanted to try a bite of what I'd gotten, and I wanted to try a bite of her dinner or dessert. Even then, though, you usually pass the fork to the other person. If it's soup, you might hold the spoon for the other person. But things like that are not the norm. We're tough; we're too busy and too capable to condescend to be fed by someone else. When we feed another person or are fed by another person, it's almost always because of one person being utterly dependent on the other, or because of the depth of intimacy in the love-relationship.

Maybe at the altar rail, I'm the decrepit one, too helpless to feed myself. Maybe at the altar rail, I'm the dearly beloved of my Jesus, and am fed by Him because of His great love for me. It doesn't really matter which it is -- or that it might be both. Looking at the pastor that night, with the paten of hosts and with the chalice, feeding all those people, just doing the same ol' thing he does every Sunday and every Wednesday, well, it sure makes a person realize who's the Giver and who's the receiver.