Reflection on Holy Communion 6

Apparently if you eat the same thing every day, you get a condition called 'appetite fatigue'. Imagine eating just rice for 30 days. It isn't just that you get bored. Your body has a physiological reaction such that you would rather starve to death than eat another grain of rice.

There seems to be two solutions to appetite fatigue. Eat something different each day, or have a variety of foods available each day .

Many of our churches (at least in Sydney) have worried about a kind of 'appetite fatigue' that can happen from traditional liturgy. And so we have opted for variety, for something different each week, to try and keep us entertained and interested.

I think we have missed a fundamental reality of our tradition.
Our liturgies don't lay out bowls of plain rice each day. They put on a feast each day!!
This is especially true of the Apostles Creed.
Here is a feast of gospel truth. Here is a spread that reaches from eternity to eternity. Here is a feast worth eating every day! It never grows dull, because today you might savour one dish, the next day you might chew on another. Some days a plate might pass you by without you eating it, but that is ok, because tomorrow you will feast again.

Unfortunately our parishoners have become used to fast food. And so the thought of having a maccas liturgy over and over scares them. (and rightly so)
We need to introduce each other again to the feast that is worth eating each day, to words that are so full and rich that they bear daily repetition, that grow and ripen and have depth of flavour as they get older.

Most of this post is informed by eating with the Italian Family of my wife, but an even better example is the bundle of spices that make up the Vietnamese Pho ball. A while back I heard that the best Pho is made with a bundle of spices that gets reused. The bundle needs to be used regularly (to sterilize it), but each use adds a complexity of flavour to the ball of spices as the flavours blend and interconnect. The best Pho is made from spice balls that have literally been handed down through generations, gaining depth with every bowl of soup.
I miss Pho. I could it eat it every day