Public Consumption

Learning about the sacred secrets in faith

05/02/2022

Jn 6:22-29 [After Jesus had fed the five thousand men, his disciples saw him walking on the sea.] The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left. Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”

I want to tell you something about Christianity that you may not like. On the other hand, once you understand it, you may like it very much. It is called the disciplina arcani, which is Latin for “the discipline of the secret”. That is, in the early Church – and even today – there were certain doctrines, like the Mass, that were kept super secret, not for public consumption. Only those who were baptized and fully initiated Christians could know about these secrets, the most sacred teachings and practices of our faith.

This is one reason Jesus taught in parables: to make his tough teaches both easier but also harder to understand. When his disciples ask him why our Lord uses parables, he replied in Mt 13:11, “Because the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.” Have you noticed how in RCIA we have the dismissal of the catechumens after the homily? Why do we kick them out? Well, because we are about to begin the holiest part of the Mass, the second half, the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It is sacred but also a secret. And it is not for the uninitiated or for public consumption. When we dismiss the catechumens, we are protecting the disciplina arcani, the discipline of the secret of the Eucharist.

Yesterday I celebrated Mass in Winslow and we used incense. After Mass, a young girl of about 12 years of age asked me why I went around the altar two different times during Mass with incense. I smiled and said: “You are a very smart girl to notice that. The first time I did that was to incense the altar itself at the beginning of Mass. The second time was in the middle of Mass and then I incensed the gifts on the altar, the bread and the wine.” Afterwards she came up to Dc. Mike and said she would like to become an altar server. She was learning the disciplina arcani, the discipline of the secret. And she wanted to know more secrets.

Of the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the evangelist who keeps the disciplina arcani the best is John. How so? Well, when you read John’s gospel, his meaning is not always clear on the surface, but you really have to ponder and pray about it. Like the little girl in Winslow, we have to ask John: “Why do you do that?” For example, today in Jn 6, Jesus says: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you”. What food is he talking about? A few verses later in v. 51, Jesus will explain: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will life forever”. We know this is part of Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in Jn 6. But let’s not be too smug and congratulate ourselves and think we understand Jesus’ meaning here. Like the Jews we too ask: “How can he give us his flesh to eat?”

Another way John preserves the disciplina arcani is he does not give us an “Institution Narrative” in his Last Supper scene, where Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and declares it to be his Body. In a sense, John’s Institution Narrative is provided not at the Last Supper, but in John 6 at the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish. Again, like the little girl we may ask: “Why do you do that, John?” And John might answer like Jesus in Mt 13:11: “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted”. In other words, some things are so sacred they must be kept secret. They are not for public consumption.

The only thing I can compare the disciplina arcani to in our modern experience is sex education. Parents and educators agonize over the right age to explain the “birds and the bees” to young people. And they should agonize about the most appropriate age. Why? Because adults are about to initiate young people into the mysteries of life, where they came from, the most intimate expression of spousal love, where marriage becomes both ratum and consummatum (ratified in the vows and consummated in sexual intimacy). In other words, there are some things in life that are so secret and so sacred they are not for public consumption and should be treated like the disciplina arcani, and revealed only to those who are ready.

Like I said, there are some things in Christianity that you may not like, like this business of keeping secrets. But on the other hand, once you understand why we maintain the ancient disicplina arcani, you may like it very much.

Praised be Jesus Christ!