“Family” takes in a broad aspect for me. Beth and I are enjoying a week at the beach with all three daughters, their husbands, the six grandchildren, and two friends the younger bunch invited along for the occasion. Such term, though, embraces, as well, a host of others emotionally connected to the core of who I am, relatives and in-laws whose place in this puzzle entitled “My Life” sometimes is hard to explain. “The cousin of my maternal aunt’s second husband”, for example, illustrates just how much linguistics can fail to capture the whole clan. The actual details beyond what death and divorce can bring into the picture are often known to only a few. A common historical link in our genetics, therefore, doesn’t necessarily define the subject under discussion. Jesus once declared His mother and siblings to be “whosoever shall do the will of my Father” and thereby gives image to my point somewhat, the idea that our bond with each other is spiritual in nature and the glue holding us together is something greater than the womb that birthed us. In his book, “The Holy Longing”, Ron Rolheiser surprisingly breaks with his Catholic heritage, believing church doctrine equating the Eucharist to a literal fulfillment of the Biblical verse above to be wrong. He quote two Greek words, “sarx” and “soma”, that are translated as “body”, the latter one meaning the human condition in so far as its positive possibilities (health, attractiveness, good works, etc.), and the other one denoting the negative side of our existence (sickness, odor, sin, death, etc.). What the author suggests, then, is, rather than Jesus referring to a demand of us to consume His own carnality in any manner, it is our own corporal representation of His identity we are to ingest. Warts and all, in being the vessel that He inhabits, we are to be one in His name. I’m not sure I can accept such thinking in its entirety. That entire portion of Scripture is better explained, in my opinion, when we look at it as requiring a daily commitment on our part somehow merge into His reality. Nonetheless, there is certainly food for thought here. If He, indeed, indwells us, surely that should empower us enough to “co-inhabit” the vessel, the divine umbilical cord greater than that which makes us all individuals……
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