Give Us This Day

  On the Sundays of our girlhood, in a church in the middle of the country, we took Communion. The older sister, you went first. The priest held the wafer above you. 

“Body of Christ.” 

You laid it on your tongue, and bowed your head on its thin stem.

Not to chew the Body of Christ. To eat, but not to chew. To be good, to be good like Him.

When I opened my hands, I felt the white wafer rest on my palms, so light. Then on my tongue, so dry. 

You ate the wafer, letting it dissolve on the roof of your mouth. You said Amen. But as the years went by, that symbol of sustenance was all you would take into your mouth. Eating was a gesture; denial, your nourishment. 

You were always so good. 

Not to eat, not to chew; to be good.

You wanted to be like Teresa of Avila. To mortify the flesh, not feed it, is saintly. Therefore be imitators of God. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. You wanted to give yourself up entirely.

  To be quiet, as the priest talks, as the world talks, as you grew from girl to woman. To be small, to be beautiful in renunciation, like Him. Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. To have ribs marked with the goodness of emaciation, and arms, extended wide, showing how thin. To be like Him, floating above; to be like the wafer, floating, dissolving, beyond reproach. 

We kept going, you to worship, I to be at your side. When we murmured the Our Father, I prayed you would trespass. The spirit needs a body. Only when we stood before the priest, hands open, did we share a meal.

ZC Aardt is a US-based artist who writes fiction and creative nonfiction. Aardt’s current project is a short story collection.

Twitter: @AardtZ

Artwork by Vamika Sinha