KISSED BY GOD: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SPIRITUALITY IN THE SHORT STORIES
OF ANDRE DUBUS
BY FATHER BENEDICT AUER, O.S.B.
There is an icon of an old desert monk painted with a transfixed expression under
which is written in Greek "He was kissed by God." This happens as often as we receive
the Eucharist. Yet for many Catholics the Eucharist has become commonplace. Everyone goes to communion. People no longer refrain from reception of the sacrament because
of the fast laws which for practical purposes have ceased to exist, or because of
serious sin which for some has also ceased to exist. When communion time comes during a Liturgy, everyone rises and approaches the altar. For some, the teaching of the
Church on Eucharist and the Real Presence have blended into a "nice warm feeling"
spirituality which is accepting and open, but often lacking in depth of commitment
that true Eucharistic spirituality should and does foster. Theology has created definitions,
and even re-definitions, but these do not effect the people in the pews. Who speaks
in a clear voice for the Real Presence? What is the Real Presence? Do we need a
clarification of the doctrine of transubstantiation? What is needed is a practical
and human approach which still incorporates the doctrine of the Real Presence .
Where do we look? In this article I would like to suggest that we turn to literature,
and in particular to the short stories of Andre Dubus. Andre Dubus has created a Spirituality
of the Eucharist which I believe is not only readable but theologically correct.
In "A Father's Story" Dubus creates a picture of Eucharist that is psychologically
real, but also human. He creates a picture of a man sustained by Eucharist, but
a character who is flawed. He sets the tone when the protagonist, Luke Ripley, speaks
for himself:
Do not think of me as a spiritual man who every thought during
those twenty-five minutes is at one with the words of the Mass.
Each morning I try, each morning I fail, and know that always
I will be a creature who , looking at Father Paul and the altar,
and uttering prayers, will be distracted by scrambled eggs, horses,
the weather, and memories and daydreams that have nothing to do with the sacrament
I am about to receive.
[p. 460]
The humaneness of the character is important to the plot, but so is the protagonist's
attachment to the Eucharist. A man struggling to cope with his life in the face
of many struggles finds comfort in the Real Presence.
The true impact of the Eucharist on the life of a Catholic is pictured quite clearly
in Dubus. It should lead to contemplation, or as Ripley puts it:
I can receive , through the Eucharist, and also, at Mass and at
other times, moments and even minutes of contemplation. But I cannot achieve contemplation,
as some can, and so, having to face and forgive my own failures, I learned from
them both the necessity and wonder of ritual. For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing
allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.
[pp. 460-461]
Ritual can become a form of slow dancing with God. The ritual safely fixes us to the
earth while the familiar patterns and words whisper a mystic experience of man's
encounter with the present moment, and for a moment we experience the touch of God
or the whisper of his presence. In an age when the mystery or mysterious has been removed
from life and even the sacraments such a statement is important coming from a "secular"
author.
And the actual reception of the host is touched with sensitivity. Ripley again captures
the moment:
And, while my mind dwells on breakfast...there is, as I take the host from Father
Paul and place it on my tongue and return to the pew, a feeling that I am thankful
I have not lost in the forty-eight years since my first Communion. At its center
is excitement; spreading out from it is the peace of certainty. Or the certainty
of peace.
[p. 461]
Eucharist is not treated as a routine ritual, but rather an exciting and refreshing
experience of the presence of God. The Theological jargonese has been dropped and
replaced by reality, humanness, even mystical experience, but all based in the experience of a man searching for God. And what is that experience, Father Paul tells the
protagonist that "Belief is believing in God; Faith is believing that God believes
in you." [p. 461]. And for Dubus that is the excitement and the peace. The excitement
of a dialogue with God, that faint whisper of Elijah, and the peace of knowing with
certainty that God is involved in our lives.
Because of this strong Eucharistic spirituality in the life of the major character
in "My Father's Story", we see a development in his relationship with God and his
growth as person. His prayer life is simple, but profound. And he explains it:
I have said I talk with God in the mornings, as I start my day,
and sometimes as I sit with coffee, looking at the birds, and the
woods. Of course He has never spoken to me, but that is not something I require.
Nor does He need to. I know Him, as I know the part of myself that knows Him....
[p.474-475]
These lines brought to mind that great scene in the film Ladyhawk
in which Matthew Broderick tells the knight that he often speaks to God, yet God
has never mentioned the knight. Yet when does Luke Ripley gain his strength from
the Eucharist? After a tragic accident, he says "when I received the Eucharist while
Jennifer's car sat twice-damaged.... I felt neither loneliness or shame, but as though He
were watching me, even from my tongue, intestines, blood." A God who takes part
not only in our lives but in us. A God who dwelt among us, yet remains with us.
Each Mass celebrates the abiding presence of God among us. A God who humbles himself to allow
us to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood.
But this approach to God does not breed over-familiarity, but rather just the opposite
- a searching, a quest for the other. Peace is often lost because the search requires
its loss, God cannot be corralled into a little area, the expanse of God is everywhere, and therefore Ripley states:
I do not feel the peace I once did: not with God, nor the earth,
or anyone on it. I have begun to prefer this state, to remember
with fondness the other one as a period of peace I neither earned
nor deserved.
[p. 475]
Another secret follower of Pelagius bites the dust. Scratch a Catholic and you often
find someone who is earning his or her salvation. A follower of Pelagius who still
sees salvation as an earned proposition. Here Dubus points out that Luke Ripley
has grown beyond that point with the help of the Eucharist. It is not a simple spirituality,
but rather an ontological relationship, one filled with Angst, yet a relationship.
An intimate union of God and soul which builds in this short story until the final passage where it mingles with the Eucharist, the Word of God, and the self, Luke.
In the concluding paragraphs a hope-filled picture of a man in love with his God
is presented to the reader.
And He [God] says: I am a Father too.
Yes, I [Ripley] say, as You are a Son whom this morning I will receive; unless
You kill me on the way to Church, then I trust You will receive me. And as a Son
made You made Your plea.
Yes, He says, but I would not lift the cup.
True, and I don't want You to lift it from me either
[p. 475]
In these final paragraphs, Dubus doesn't give us answers, only more cryptic questions,
and maybe that is all we can expect from our search for God. The paraphrase of the
Passion of Jesus is one more question not an answer. But during this search the Eucharist had played a key role,and it does in a number of Dubus' other stories as well.
In his story, "Adultery," Dubus tells the tale of a priest who has left the priesthood
and is involved in a love affair with a woman, and as the affair progresses we are
shown the priest's Eucharistic spirituality as well as continued love of God. Dubus describes the priest's love of the Eucharist as follows:
Joe had loved the Eucharist since he was boy; it was why he became a priest.
Some went to the seminary to be pastors and bishops, they didn't know it, but it
was why they went, and in the seminary they were like young officers. Some, he
said, went to pad and shelter their neuroses -or give direction to them. ...For a long time
the Eucharist worked for Joe. It was the high point of his day, when he consecrated
and ate and drank. The trouble was it happened early in the morning.
[p.438]
The priest centers his life on Eucharist. But as he grows older, he looses some of
his fervor, but his love of the Eucharist remains even though he is unfaithful to
his vows. Dubus very compassionately describes what occurs:
He did not lose his faith in the Eucharist. After leaving the priesthood he had
daily gone to Mass and received what he knew was the body and bloodof Christ.
He knew it, he told Edith, in the simpliest and most profound way: most profound,
he said, because he believed that faith had no more to do with intellect than love did.
[p.444]
Even though he is involved in what he considers an illicit love affair, he continues
to go to Mass, but stops going to Communion. The Eucharist is essential even when
he cannot receive physically but only ocularly consumes the host. He nearly joins
the people in line for communion, but does not. His lover offers to stop seeing him,
but by now has terminal cancer. The end is near. And now he realizes that the love
he felt for her was a "microcosm of the Eucharist," a love not dissimilar to many
of the mystics who experienced the love of God as bridegroom. At the end of the story as
he receives his last Eucharist., it is truly an act of love. Deeply felt, but now
experienced because he has had a true experience of love. As sinful as Joe's life
has become in the eyes of others, he never despairs or looses his love of Eucharist.
The sacrament sustains him in his trials, yet his humanity is not a detriment, but
rather a oneness with the Son of God. No answer is given by Dubus, only his fictional
observation on the complexity of life. Life is not an answer, it is only formulated
in questions. As one priest recently said, "I have questions, but no answers."
And maybe that is what these short stories offer us -
questions, more questions, and the ultimate question. Who is God? When I was in
the seminary a fellow seminarian asked me "Who is your God?" At the time, I thought
it was a joke. I answered "The same as yours." But that isn't true. God is not
the same for everyone, maybe the definition of God is, but not God. God is as different
and diverse as there are people in the universe. And our approaches to Eucharist
are the same. The Incarnational Theology involved in these stories is important
to us who minister because they put in concrete terms what we believe. More and more I am
coming to realize that story alone can convey truth. Each of our stories of God
whether real or fictional glimpse God. And such insight must be spoken and shared.
These stories do just that as I read them I find myself nodding yes to what they are saying.
Agreeing with the statements on Eucharist and in so doing gaining insights which
articulate the inarticulate - The Real Presence. In "If They Knew Yvonne" Dubus
gives the old teaching on Eucharist through the observations of a Christian Brother who
tries to explain the strength gained from daily Eucharist:
He told us of the benefits gained through Eucharist: sanctifying
grace, which helped us fight temptation; release from the temporal
punishment due to sin.... He hoped and prayed, he said, that he would
die with the Eucharist on his tongue.
[p. 175]
But this narrow view of Eucharist is no longer sufficient for his characters have
grown, and continue to grow during these stories, just as we grow during our lifetimes.
The Eucharist is not just something to receive - it is an intimate moment with our
God. In Voices From the
Moon
, a long short story, or novella, Dubus makes a statement through the mouth of a
young man considering the priesthood which captures a lot of his own spirituality
: "Hard enough to stay a Catholic, he prayed; even harder to be a good enough one
to be a priest." [p.290]. The Eucharistic Spirituality of Andre Dubus is supportive.
It supports his characters, and forces them to grow. They must confront who they
are in the midst of often complex and impossible lives. Broken marriages. Abusive
parents. Incestuous situations. Fallen priests. In other words, daily life. I find his
Eucharistic Spirituality speaks to those struggling to be Catholics in an imperfect
world, and speaks of the possibility of being intimate with God. Becoming a part
of the mystery of the God Become Man. And that is important for a world that often misses
the point - Jesus rose on Easter. He is not dead. He lives among us. And we can
eat his body and drink his blood. No greater love has anyone than to give his life
for a friend. These stories are stories of friendship, intimacy with Jesus. And we
too can come from our communion with similar stories - each of these encounters are
part of a love story, maybe that is why poetry and fiction are now the best ways
to speak theology.
All selections are taken from Andre Dubus, Selected Stories
(New York: Vintage books, 1989).
3/95 Spiritual Life