The Power of One Good Meal

Holy Thursday –  This is the evening when, as children, we would go to church and watch the men of the parish reenact the “washing of the feet" ceremony which takes place at the Last Supper.  Father TJ, in the week leading up to Holy Thursday, would entreat all the able-bodied men, who rarely amounted to a full dozen even when they all gathered at once, to show up for Thursday evening mass – and they would dutifully sit at the front of the church while certain passages regarding the Last Supper were read – and they would remove their shoes and socks as instructed, while Father TJ and a young assistant with a towel and basin would go down the line in a mock representation of the washing of the feet – pouring real water over each man’s feet into a basin held beneath.  While Father TJ poured, he would repeat some passage about washing the feet – or maybe he said, “do this in memory of me” – I don’t remember.

 There would always be some smiles from the men whose feet may have been tickled by the cool water – or by the silliness of it – or maybe by the self-acknowledged “crustiness” of their own feet – you asked me to be here, don’t forget . . . they may have been thinking this while Father TJ was thinking or doubting the same thing, for sometimes he would smile too.  We young girls and our mothers in the pews could never know the exact reason why each man smiled – though we could often guess rightly by the “otherways” appearance of some of the old men – or we would learn the reason later from my twin brothers, teenagers at the time, when they exclaimed the horror of some of those men’s feet – whew!   That's the kind of thing they would have said.  I think Father TJ would often remark a similar thing the next day, or another day, when he was invited to our house for dinner, remark with his keen Irish-eye-laugh – whew!

 But the ritual went on the next year, nevertheless – important – no matter how awkward or silly or disgusting it may have been.

 Just the other day I was thinking about my favorite movies, trying to make a list of them in my mind, suddenly realizing that my top three favorites were similar in that they all climaxed with a “last meal” kind of scene – not just any last meal but a symbolic meal that has taken a lifetime of preparation to accomplish (we feel this somehow).  In each of these movies, “Babette’s Feast,” “August Lunch,” and “Of Gods and Men,” there are tears in the eyes of those people sitting at the table as they sip the wine and eat the food and join in their common humanity – and the scene is filled with love, absolute love, forgiveness, understanding, and togetherness.  It is a Last Supper scene, I came to realize while I was walking and thinking about my favorite movies – and that must be a universal theme or archetype that humans recognize in their hearts and spirits, something Joseph Campbell has probably written a book or chapter about, I concluded.

 In the Danish film “Babette's Feast,” all the stodgy men and women of the village church finally forsake their rigidity for the “sinfulness” of enjoying a feast together – and their lives are resurrected, converted to actual living, because after that meal these old people dance in a circle as though they were being initiated into the circle of life – and all from the miracle of good food and wine taken together.  In “August Lunch,” my next favorite movie, an Italian comedy, old stodgy life is unexpectedly pushed out of its daily routine.  After numerous attempts to return to this routine, which just makes everthing worse, our hero finally succumbs to what becomes a "final meal" that converts everyone at the table – and the movie ends with dancing, love, and togetherness.

 The third movie, which I saw just one week ago, “Of Gods and Men,” is based on the true story of the final days of a group of Benedictine monks in Algeria who are destined to be murdered by terrorists – they know the danger, though they don’t know the fact of it, yet something in them does know – for they come together that last night and enjoy a simple meal of soup and bread and wine. The aged, good men sit around the table and sip the wine which they have obviously not sampled in decades – and this first taste solicits tears from their eyes. They listen to a tape of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. There are wordless close-ups of the old men's faces – moist eyes full of compassion, old dry skin and uneven beards that somehow seem beautiful, the smiles of forgiveness they give each other . . . it seems there are angels dancing on the table to the choreography of Swan Lake – in my imagination anyway.

The “last supper” scene of this movie – it took a lifetime of sacrifice for those monks to get to that place where they could experience absolute joy in being alive.  I know it’s a movie, a reenactment, maybe not exactly how it happened – but there is great catharsis and significance in watching such things nevertheless.