Can Celiacs be Christian?

I am that bread of life...if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever...From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.  - John 6:48-66

These were the Jews who turned back from following Jesus, not just because they didn't understand how it was possible for Him to give them his flesh to eat, but because it sounded like cannibalism to them.  Truly a hard saying.  It is a mystery.  Like, literally a mystery (as in sacrament).  And of all the substances that God chose to use for the implementation of this mystery, it was two things: bread and wine.  Specifically bread made from wheat and wine made from grapes.  But where does this leave celiacs?

I had the fortune of learning about celiac disease from one of the foremost authorities on this subject, the person who is writing the textbook that will be used to teach medical professionals about celiac disease.  That person is Nadine Grzeskowiak, the Gluten Free RN.  She has an interesting story.  After nearly dying from celiac disease she got diagnosed on accident and when she recovered she made it her life's mission to go out and save other people who were suffering from the disease but probably didn't know it.  I was one of those people.  The main thing she teaches is that this is a disease that only requires one treatment: follow a gluten-free diet for the rest of your life.  Gluten free indicates absolutely zero amount of gluten, ever.  No cheat days.  No bending the rules.  If you are bending the rules, you really aren't on a gluten free diet, are you?  One thing I've often wondered about Nadine, however, is what if she wanted to become Orthodox?  

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man...ye have no life in you.  - John 6:53

I know for certain that Nadine would not take communion, because it is in the form of bread.  The last time she accidentally had an exposure to gluten, she suffered ill-health for a number of years because of it.  She is that sensitive.  What provision, then, does God make for celiacs?  How will they be saved, if they aren't able to take communion?  This really is a deep and distressing question.

I am a celiac.  How do I go about being a Christian, then?  Thankfully, my priest is kind enough to use a workaround.  He takes some of the wine out of the chalice before adding in the bread, and communes me separately.  But what will those faithful do, if their priest is unaware that this workaround is possible?  I know Orthodox Christians who have to abstain from communion because of their inability to tolerate even a small amount of bread.  Here is what I would tell those Christians.  God knows your illness.  He knows you are unable to eat bread.  He will find another way to feed you his Grace.  He would not leave us without some provision for our salvation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prepare to Die

A few years ago I was contacted by my priest who asked me if I could give a ride to church to a new member of our community.   He was a college age kid (Zoomer) who attends the local university.   He gave me the boy’s phone number and I arranged to pick him up outside of his dormitory.   He came to church with me, and stayed after the service for coffee hour.   The boy’s name was Adam.   Sitting around the table during coffee hour our conversation turned towards politics and somehow the name of Nick Fuentes came up.   Suddenly, out of nowhere, Adam turned to me and asked me point blank “would you die for Nick?”   I was taken aback, and didn’t exactly know how to respond.   It was clear to me by the way Adam had asked this question that he had already settled the question in his own mind, and if I had asked him the same question he would have answered in the affirmative.   This isn’t the first question that a normal person would have asked in polite company.   Under normal circumstance
Read more

Don't Sleep on Young P.

I work as a groundskeeper at a hospital.   I’ve been working there for 18 years.   It’s a four man crew.   I’m the only person in the department who graduated from high school, and sometimes I feel out of place.   When I was in high school I went to class and passed without having to study.   The guys in my department skipped class to smoke cigarettes and joints, probably.   They didn’t study either, probably.   The previous lead of our department also didn’t graduate high school.   He could barely even read or write.   When he would try to write “grounds” (as in “grounds department”) he would spell it “gronds.”   I could just picture him staring into space and trying to pronounce the word phonetically, mouthing the “o” sound, when he figured that one out.   Nobody ever said anything to him because it probably wouldn’t have done any good because he was so hard headed that he was impervious to being told anything.   Also, we thought it was funny.   You can read “gronds” every day and it
Read more

Since You Asked…

Lately I’ve been on a kick promoting monasticism on social media.   I got a lot of pushback because of it, and that’s okay.   I think the crux of the matter was that people who were already married or are planning on getting married took it personal when I laid out the argument that monasticism is a higher path than marriage.   Where did I get such a ridiculous idea, anyway?   Allow me to explain. First, I’ll cite a few sources.   I have two books called The Law of God .   One is by the priest Daniel Sysoev who was killed in a church in Moscow by a Muslim man who was angry that he had been converting Muslims to Orthodoxy, and who is generally known for his missionary work in bringing people from other faiths into the true faith.   In the section of his book dedicated to the sacraments of the Church he has a subsection on monasticism.   In this section he cites the apostle Paul who “says that one who remains a virgin is more blessed than one who enters into marriage…This does not mean t
Read more