Thursday, October 10, 2013

HAMBURGER VOCATION


This weekend is vocation awareness weekend.  “Vocation” means more than a priestly or religious life.  There are many vocations within the Church.  Marriage is also a vocation.  Religious life is a vocation.  The chosen single life is a vocation.  A vocation helps us live out our service to God.  One first chooses how they are called to serve and then figures out which vocation best fits their calling. 
If you have yet to figure out your vocation, actively look into it, pursue it, and live it with a vengeance!  Choose rather than settle for what is left to you.  If you are already in a vocation, start today to rededicate yourself to your vocation.  Let it never grow cool.  Be a person on fire, fully alive, living your life and your vocation to the fullest.  Be a light to others; a fire burning brightly and remarkably in a world that so desperately needs it.

Someone asked about a communion wafer on a hamburger.  (See yesterday's comments.)  One of the great things about being a Catholic is knowing the difference between an indelicacy and an indecency.  This one, however runs very close to the indecency.  Long time readers of Adam's Ale may be a bit surprised that I don't come down more directly and harshly on this matter.  Whereas I would never go to this restaurant, there may be more here than meets the eye and may point toward a deeper problem that this highlights.
 
It should be pointed out that even though they do use a communion wafer it does not mean a direct assault on the Catholic Church.  Other denomination also use communion wafers.  Let us make the grand assumption for the moment that they are good, practicing, non-Catholic Christians.  It may simply be that they do not have the same idea of what the wafer signifies as it does Catholics.  After all, if it is simply a symbol for example, so is bread.  Does that mean that we cannot use bread on our hamburger because it is a symbol of Christ Who says, "I am the Bread of Life"?  Of course not.
 
This is yet another reason we do not randomly say, "Do you believe in Christ?  Then come to the altar and receive the Eucharist."  Someone may indeed believe in Christ, may believe that the host is somehow connected to Christ, but then see no reason why it (unconsecrated) c

ouldn't be put on top of a hamburger.
 
With this in mind, I would not step foot in the establishment but would be moved to write a very kind note explaining why and wait to see if any kind of action takes place.  Who knows? Maybe the best kind of evangelization might take place because of this faux pas.  Nothing will happen if we let it slide under the table, not movement toward the unity to which Christ calls us if either we eat the hamburger with no comment or willy nilly share the Eucharist.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read on the web about that wafer on a burger . . it was offered by a restaurant in Chicago . . it got a lot of publicity in Chicago . . I found the restaurant owner and expressed my objection . . the guy was not very smart . .he claimed it was an innocent promotion . . but he didn't say that he would quit it

Cyndy Cook said...

Unconsecrated or not, inspired by a comic book character or not, this offends me as a Catholic. As others have pointed out, people like this would not dare to similarly insult or offend Muslims or Jews. This is all part of the incremental assault on Catholicism and designed to denigrate our faith.

Fr. V said...

EXCELLENT! You contacted the guy!? That is great. Kind of proved my point - he is completely ignorant of what he is doing. (and on top of that he is not a very smart business person. No apology at least?) I would not go there. I wonder if he came to a Mass at a Catholic Church and nothing was said, would he go to Communion? That is one of the great reasons we do not share Communion in that manner. What we are dealing with is far too important and here is a guy that can't even realize how deeply he is offending somebody.