#Eucharist – Intentional Catholic

August 23, 2022August 14, 2022

An Open Letter to the US Bishops on Celiac Disease and the Eucharist

Last winter I wrote several posts about celiac disease and the Eucharist. I thought I’d share the letter I sent to Pope Francis and which, now, I am in the process of sending to the U.S. bishops. (Incidentally, this is not an easy task. You can’t email blast it, and you can’t get a list of addresses easy to toss into printable labels, either. I am handwriting every envelope.)

My sweet chromosomally-gifted girly-girl on her First Communion day, 6 years before we learned what wheat did to the inside of her digestive tract. 🙂

Dear Pope Francis and the bishops of the Catholic Church of the United States,

I am writing to you as a lifelong Catholic, formed and active in liturgical music ministry and committed to living and deepening my faith. I am writing to ask during this Synod on Synodality, that you and the bishops of the world reconsider the prohibition on gluten-free Communion hosts.

Last November, my teenage daughter, who has Down syndrome, was diagnosed with celiac disease.

As we began transitioning her to a gluten-free diet, I was astonished, and then angry, to discover that although gluten-free hosts are readily available, they have been specifically disallowed by canon law.

Online resources and priests I have talked to have told me that the reason gluten is “required” is because our sacraments must follow the form in which Jesus gave them to us.

However, the Gospels say nothing about wheat or gluten. Scripture says only that Jesus took bread and wine and said “do this in memory of me.”

There are many forms of bread, including those without gluten. In fact, as I searched online for Passover regulations, I found that, at least in modern times, Passover bread may be any one of five grains: wheat, spelt, rye, barley, or oats. Oats are gluten free.

Even if we accept the assumption that Jesus’ last supper bread was wheat, the wheat used today is not what he used. Modern varieties are vastly different. If we have to use what Jesus used, why aren’t we limited to a variety that at least existed at the time of the Last Supper?

The answer, of course, is that it is impractical. It would be an undue burden to insist upon using varieties that are no longer grown. Whatever kind of bread Jesus used, he used because it was what was practical in the place and time where he was.

The Church has already made this and other adaptations to what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Individual hosts, reduced to two ingredients only, have been declared the norm for Catholic liturgies. Substantial or “real” bread, such as Jesus would have shared with his disciples, is also impractical for use in large assemblies.

But if these adaptations to Jesus’ practice have already been made without jeopardizing the validity of the sacrament, the Church should be able to accommodate celiacs as well.

I appreciate the allowances made in the letter from then-Cardinal Ratzinger for extremely low-gluten hosts. I am aware that regulations also allow for a separate cup to be offered to those with celiac disease.

But when many places (especially post-pandemic) only offer the host, a cup-only solution serves to separate a person with celiac disease from all his or her fellow worshipers. It serves to divide, rather than unite, the Body of Christ.

If we truly believe that the Eucharist is the source and summit, and our spiritual food for the work of discipleship, then we should not be putting obstacles in the way of people receiving it.

This is why I am reaching out during this time of preparation for the National Eucharistic Congress in the U.S.—to ask the leaders of our Church to go back to the base assumption upon which the law concerning gluten is based. I beg you to consider: Is this really a necessary burden to impose?

God bless you in your ministry.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Basi

December 13, 2021

Open My Eyes…

I launched Intentional Catholic with the story of how the birth of my daughter, who has Down syndrome, turned my world upside down and made me see the relationship between faith and the real world in a whole new light.

You need a little upheaval every once in a while in your life to show you where your blind spots are. Celiac disease is doing this to me all over again.

In the past three(ish) weeks, I’ve realized how little attention I have spared for people with dietary restrictions. To be perfectly blunt, I’ve never taken it very seriously. I mean, I get the peanut thing. The shellfish thing. But a lot of other things I’ve regarded with a certain skepticism.

Of course, if someone has a dietary restriction I will accommodate it. But usually with some inner sense of, “I’ll do this to be courteous, but I’m not entirely convinced this is really a thing.”

Putting that in words makes me cringe, now that I’m on the other side of it.

It never occurred to me—despite hearing about it for years–how thoughtless we are about food. Everything’s got corn in it. In our case, everything’s got gluten in it: Chicken broth. Soy sauce. Taco seasoning. Breakfast sausage. (MEAT? REALLY?!?!?!?!?!)

The insistence of the Church—it’s in canon law, even!–about having to have gluten in Eucharistic hosts is just one more indication of how completely blind we are to anything that lies outside our western European culture blinders.

People with food allergies have a really sucky situation in our world, because we’ve developed a food culture that’s inflexible, crawling with cross-contamination and people like me three weeks ago, who shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, if you can’t have gluten, just don’t eat it, even if that means 98% of the food we have at this gathering is off limits. Here’s your ONE gluten-free option.” It’s a level of self-absorption I didn’t think myself capable of anymore, and learning what it feels like on the other side has been another bruising collision with the mirror.

I met a woman this weekend who was telling me that someone in her professional realm has been asked for years to bring her own food to parties, because they weren’t willing to provide gluten-free accommodation themselves. And now that they’re feeling ashamed of themselves for that level of un-hospitality, and are trying to do something about it, they’re discovering just how incredibility difficult it is to accommodate.

I have been listening to a podcast lately called “Why Can’t We See?” It’s an ecumenical trio of contemplative Christian pastors (one of them is Fr. Richard Rohr) who are exploring the biases that prevent all of us from seeing as God sees. I guarantee you will hear more about this podcast… it’s INCREDIBLE… but for now I want to draw out one of those biases: CONTACT bias. In other words, we don’t give credence to issues unless we get to know people who are impacted by them. We dismiss their pain until we love someone who fits whatever label we’re talking about. (Muslim. Democrat/Republican. Black. Gay. Disabled. You get the idea.)

One we do love a person in a label like that, it changes how we view the issues.

The truth of this bias is VERY clear to me in this holiday time, as our family is learning to navigate celiac disease for my daughter. I care about this issue now, when a few months ago, I wouldn’t have wasted a moment thinking about it, let alone doing anything.

There’s an action item in there. For me, for you. For all of us. It should be a wakeup call that Christian hospitality is way, way bigger than we have ever allowed it to be, and the prayer to open our eyes is not a metaphysical one, but a real, practical, rubber-to-the-road one.

November 30, 2021

Thoughts on the Eucharist in the wake of a diagnosis of celiac disease

Photo by David Eucaristu00eda on Pexels.com

At 6:15 the night before Thanksgiving, we got the call we’d been awaiting for nearly three months. My developmentally disabled teenager has celiac disease.

We were prepared, and had already started the transition to a gluten-free diet. But it was the next morning, at Thanksgiving Day Mass, when I really processed just how big a transition this was. I had already received Communion and was back in the music area playing my flute when I had the gut-wrenching realization that I hadn’t even thought about Communion for my daughter. There was no finding a gluten-free host at this point. The choices were to receive or not.

I let her receive. And when we got home that night I sent a note to my pastor to ask how procedures work at our parish so we’d be better prepared for Sunday.

Which we were–sort of. They put a host in a pyx and the head minister brought it over when she saw my daughter coming up for Communion. But the Eucharistic minister didn’t know what was going on and put a regular host in the pyx on top of the specialty host. So–cross-contamination! Yay!

We’re on week 1 of this transition, so it wasn’t the end of the world. There’s a learning curve here, for everyone involved. But as I watched from within the music area, unable to intervene, I groaned inwardly, glimpsing the magnitude of what we’re going to have to remember every danged week for the rest of her life.

And then after Mass, I learned that gluten-free hosts are specifically disallowed by the Church. They can do low-gluten, but not gluten-free.

The reason behind this I have not actually explored yet, though I gather it has something to do with “it can’t be bread without gluten.” (Of course, little wafers aren’t bread, either, but you know. And no bread in the history of humanity has ever consisted only of wheat and water. But whatever.) I was actually enraged, my inner mama bear ready to rumble, but I decided to follow my own admonitions to others and ask a bunch more questions, trusting–or praying, at least–that the answers would render the rage irrelevant. Which ended up being mostly true. I was given the specifications for the low-gluten hosts used in my parish. Out of 12 testing dates, 2 were over the amount of gluten we have been told is OK. The other 10 were below it. It’s enough for us to go forward–for now, at least. Until we get our feet wet and know more.

But here’s my problem. The Catholic community has a huge gap in understanding of the Eucharist. We have people who, on one side, don’t take Real Presence seriously enough. And on the other, we have those who take it so seriously that they believe gluten in a host either no longer exists after consecration, or that it’s irrelevant because God will protect us from any harm coming from the gluten in the host. (I’ve heard both of those in the past week.)

I’ve said before that I am not convinced the problem of Real Presence is nearly as dire as it has been made out to be. I think the wording of the questions on that sensational survey was the problem.

I do, however, think both of those latter beliefs are a big problem–indicative of a superstition mentality among Catholics and, by extension, evidence of a need for greater spiritual maturity.

Our bishops are aware of the problems, or they wouldn’t be focusing on the Eucharist in that new document. And yet apparently, a bunch of people wanted to boil that catechesis down to “pro-choice Catholics should be barred from Communion?”

Thank God, they didn’t go that route. The question of whose politics mirror Catholic teaching and whose don’t would have wiped out virtually every politician, regardless of party. Death penalty is a pro-life issue, too. And racism, as the US Bishops themselves said.

But I’ve got to say, if our focus around the Eucharist is on how to put up as many barriers as possible, then we have at least as big a problem in the institutional Church as we do among the laity.

Thank God, I am intelligent and well-educated in my faith, and I had a line of options queued up for my daughter. But if the Eucharist is as critical to life in the faith as we claim to believe it is, we should be working to make it EASIER for everyone, regardless of medical condition, to receive safely. We should NOT be putting obstacles in the way.

October 30, 2019

A Word of Hope for the Church, in a time of division

Bad news is everywhere these days, and often it seems like the Church is characterized by division rather than the unity implied by our name.

We bicker over whether the Eucharist is medicine for the flawed or a reward given to those who deserve it.

We bicker over kneeling versus standing.

We bicker over whether it’s better to receive on the tongue or in the hand.

When the Pope challenges us to see the world’s issues as interconnected and inseparable, quoting the last several popes, certain extreme factions within the Church (who have a secular political agenda) launch a campaign against him that has caused confusion among many faithful people who are just trying to follow Jesus in their daily lives. (You should read that article, by the way. All of it.)

And of course, there’s the ongoing stain of the sex abuse scandal.

Given all this, it was pretty demoralizing when that Pew research survey came out a few months ago. The one suggesting that Catholics don’t even really understand the one thing that, above all others, defines us: the Eucharist.

Photo by Iarlaith McNamara on Pexels.com

Today I want to offer two points as words of hope. First, this article. Words matter, and the way the Pew questions were written, many of us would hesitate, caught between our faith and the way certain words are used in the modern secular world. I mentioned this at choir practice shortly after the survey came out, when people were expressing their dismay about the survey, and a recent convert, who had to navigate those waters on the way into the Church, nodded vigorously in agreement. The authors of this analysis suggest a more hopeful picture, and their argument resonates with me.

Which brings me to the second point: part of the reason for that resonance is an experience I had when I was working as a full-time liturgy director. I was jaded even then about the view and understanding of the Eucharist among the average Catholic Mass-goer. Convinced that most people really didn’t “get” it.

Then one day, when we had a no-show, I substituted as an extraordinary Eucharistic minister.

It was an amazing experience. One after another, people raised their eyes and their hands. The looks on their faces remain with me to this day: raw, naked, vulnerable, longing, hopeful, reverent, transfigured. Those people knew they were receiving Jesus. Knew it at a visceral level that tells a truth far deeper than any survey can illuminate. By the end of Communion, I was nearly in tears.

So when the division in the Church seem ready to rip us apart at the seams—when despair tries to get a hold on my heart—I choose to hope. To believe that what I was taught as a child remains true now: the Spirit is in control, that we are led at this point in time by the person the Spirit knows we need, and that nothing can destroy the Church. Not even us.

August 21, 2019August 26, 2019

Liturgy Wars

I want to spend a few days pondering liturgy. The Eucharistic celebration is the “source and summit” of our faith, which to me means it is the spiritual food that strengthens us for discipleship in the real world, and it’s also the purest expression of our faith, uncomplicated by the messiness we experience outside the walls.

In theory.

Because we waste a lot of energy fighting about liturgy. My higher ed degrees are both in music performance, so I’m well steeped in classical music. But it’s contemporary music that lit me on fire and has shaped my Catholic identity as an adult.

So I react pretty strongly when people try to dismiss entire styles or instruments as “less worthy” or even “unworthy.” We all have things that speak to us more authentically and deeply than others. They’re not the same from person to person, because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, in diversity as wide as the creativity of God. We have no business trying to box in the Holy Spirit, Who inSpires across all eras, all cultures, and all artistic styles.

(This topic continues with “Unity vs. Uniformity” and “The Holy Spirit“)

April 18, 2019April 18, 2019

Happy Holy Thursday!

EG-Eucharist medicine

The Eucharist is a medicine we all desperately need–ourselves every bit as much as the people our minds leap to when we start trying to identify “the sinners” of the world.

I share this thought on Holy Thursday, as we gather to remember the institution of the Eucharist. I’ll be leading the choir and praying for the Church tonight.

#intentionalcatholic #eucharist #evangeliigaudium #realfaithrealworldHave a blessed Triduum.