When my son was four, he wrote a prayer to St. Michael. We had placed a small statue of St. Michael on his chest-of-drawers. It was classic: St. Michael in Roman soldier’s outfit with a drawn sword, and the devil beneath his foot. It seemed to have made a strong impression on my son. His prayer:
Dear St. Michael,
Guard my room.
Don’t let anything eat me or kill me.
Kill it with your sword!
Kill it with you sword!
Amen.
I wrote about it on the blog. Years later, it became an inspiration for a children’s book that Ancient Faith published. We were honored.
In its simplicity, the prayer is charming. It’s charm, however, could prevent the reader from hearing its much deeper instinct. It is an instinct that CS Lewis displayed in the frightening character of Screwtape.
The Screwtape Letters are presented as the advice of a senior demon to one much junior, described as his “nephew.” It is book whose genius is found in its perversity – in that it requires us to think “backwards” in order to see the truth of things. What the enemy wants of us is quite the opposite of what Heaven wants of us. Quietly, though, there is a sub-theme throughout the letters of advice that reveal the true nature of evil itself. There is no true loyalty among the demons. “Uncle” Screwtape reveals over and over that, whatever may come about with their “patients” (the humans whom they tempt), he would also like to devour his nephew. His final letter is signed, “Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle Screwtape.”
Demons are the ultimate consumers. In the writings of a number of Fathers, evil is described as a “parasite.” It has not substance of its own and therefore seeks to use the substance of others. We ourselves are not evil, but evil finds a place within us and seeks to make us its pawns.
In the first week of Great Lent, the Church prays the Great Canon of St. Andrew. In a certain place it reads:
Brief is my lifetime and full of pain and wickedness, but accept me in penitence and recall me to awareness of Thee. May I never be the possession or food of the enemy. O Savior, have compassion on me.
This is how evil sees us: as food. Nothing more.
This is the darkest part of our modern life, that the world is so easily reduced to a commodity. In the horrors of the 20th century (still with us in a variety of forms), human beings were consigned to various forms of extermination, but, in every case, with an accompanying effort at their de-humanization in the process.
Among the stories we know from those times are some that reveal a degree of humanity that we describe as sainthood. Some calmly took the place of others who were being led to the death chambers. Their voluntary and innocent self-offering crushed the lies of those who sought to turn human beings into commodities.
“Do not let anything eat me or kill me.”
When we reduce the world to the level of commodity, some thing to be consumed, we discover that we cannot at the same time shield ourselves from that terrible reckoning. We ourselves become the objects of consumption.
“His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.” (Rev 12:4)
It would seem clear that anything less than love tends towards the commodification of other human beings. Our love of statistics, in which the infinite worth of each individual human being is swallowed by the aggregate of percentages, serves to blind us to the consequences of such thought. It is hard to love 23.2 percent of the population (or any other such measure). Our rush towards profits allows us to excuse and ignore the reality of our actions.
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Gal. 5:14–15 )
It is obvious that we need to eat.
“And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.” (Gen.1:29)
There is creation given to us as food – but not as commodity. It is the modern heresy of a secularized, monetized world that reduces food to commodity. It is little wonder that our age has seen the development of foods that are unsafe and unhealthy. They are cheap (a word that reveals its commodification) and they are sweet (serving our pleasure and not our health).
“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,” (Is. 55:2)
“Eat what is good.” How do we go about such eating? It is not for nothing that the most central, repeated sacrament of the Church is given in an act of eating and drinking. To eat the Body of Christ and to drink His Blood is also a lesson in eating that which is good, truly Good. It is a lesson that points us towards the proper relationship with everything we eat. As the priest breaks the Bread of the Eucharist, he says quietly:
“Divided and distributed is the Lamb of God: who is divided, yet not disunited; who is ever eaten, yet never consumed; but sanctifying those who partake thereof.”
We eat without “consuming.” The Body of Christ is not commodified. It is not reduced to an object to be disunited and consumed. Parts of creation are given to us for “food” but not for our consumption. Creation itself is given to us as a Eucharistic gift. It is to be eaten in the manner which the Eucharist itself teaches us.
The purpose of eating and drinking in the Eucharist is communion with God. The same is true for the whole of our life. Learning to eat in communion with God, indeed, learning to live in communion with God, is to live free of the commodification of the world around us.
In the 8th century B.C., God spoke to Israel through the prophet Amos. It is a word that continues to echo:
“Hear this, you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail,
Saying: “When will the New Moon be past,
That we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
That we may trade wheat?
Making the ephah small and the shekel large,
Falsifying the scales by deceit,
That we may buy the poor for silver,
And the needy for a pair of sandals—
Even sell the bad wheat?”The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Shall the land not tremble for this,
And everyone mourn who dwells in it?
All of it shall swell like the River,
Heave and subside
Like the River of Egypt.
“And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord GOD,
“That I will make the sun go down at noon,
And I will darken the earth in broad daylight;
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
And all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist,
And baldness on every head;
I will make it like mourning for an only son,
And its end like a bitter day.“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the LORD.” (Amos 8:4–11)
Even a little child can understand that eating one another is wrong. In wisdom, we can begin to learn how to eat in the right way – to eat that which is good – in the good way.
O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom You have made them all!
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