Where to Start?

At my local supermarket, which is stocking products for the upcoming celebration of Easter, I spotted, next to the wide variety of Chocolate Bunnies, a Chocolate Cross:


(I cropped off the name of the company that produced this confection.) Maybe this style of candy has been on the market for years and I just never noticed it. But when I saw the item, I had a visceral reaction against this development. Now, thank God this company had the sensibility to not issue a Chocolate Crucifix, though that must certainly be next.

People to whom I have described this product have normally at first expressed the view that there is nothing at all wrong with such a thing. That is, until I ask them one important question. "What's your strategy for eating it?"

I remember as a child invariably thinking, as I ate my annual Chocolate Bunny, things along the line of, "Hmm, I guess I'll start with your ears this year. Next I'll eat your tail."

And there's just no escaping the fact that, if you eat a Chocolate Cross, you'll have to immediately make that crucial decision of where to start.

Shall I just start at the top, eat the branch that would have hosted the sign INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum/Jesus the Nazarean, King of the Jews)? Next perhaps I will eat the base, the Milk Chocolate plank symbolizing that prototype onto which the feet of my Savior were nailed. As for the top branches, where the hands of my Lord were pierced, I'll maybe save those and enjoy their sweetness later.

When I ask people how they would eat a Chocolate Cross, they are suddenly more circumspect and express the view that, after all, there's just something not right with consuming this thing.

To eat and to drink are ultimately at the root of our very being. And in the Orthodox/Catholic Tradition, we experience, through the gift of the Sacrament, union with the Divine by means of this basic and vital process. Sadly, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ sojourning in the more radical Protestant communities do not experience this. However much they talk of "feasting on the Word (meaning, read the Bible)," their spiritual hunger remains. And eating a Chocolate Cross is a tragic substitution for that which Christ instituted.

I avoid foods with processed sugar. But if I splurge, it will be with a Chocolate Bunny or a Cadbury Egg. And before the Cross of Christ I bow down in worship and his Holy Resurrection I glorify.

Pray for us, Saint Patrick!

Timed for release on this, the Feast of Saint Patrick, Illuminator of Ireland, is an article claiming that the great missionary lied about his past in order to cover up his involvement in an unseemly family business. Roy Flechner, Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Cambridge, claims that Saint Patrick fled willingly (not kidnapped into slavery as the Saint claimed) to Ireland and probably brought his wealth with him in the form of slaves he would then sell.

Flechner claims that Patrick's story about being a former slave lacks credibility because:

"Once you escaped from slavery you lacked any legal status and anyone could imprison you and kill you, and this conflicts with what he said -- that he broke loose, crossed Ireland and then the Irish Sea to get back to Britain," he explained.

"He might not even have been acknowledged as a free man in his native Britain and could have been enslaved again there."

In defense of the original vita sancti, I will point out that Flechner's primary argument here is invalidated by its own premise. Surely people in that time knew the reality of their time better than we do today. If this story is implausible now, it would have been equally implausible then. That is, unless it were true. A free born person kidnapped into slavery who subsequently escaped was not, in fact, a renegade slave back in their native land.

So Flechner's argument is that Patrick wasn't kidnapped into slavery because then he would always be a slave. And since he wasn't kidnapped into slavery, then he went to Ireland willingly. And since he'd want some spending money in Ireland, he probably brought slaves to sell there.

Flechner claims that the best way to bring liquidated cash to a foreign isle was to transport humans in shackles across the water with the intention of selling them there. Sounds more unnecessarily complicated than bringing gold coins.

The argument is ultimately based on pure speculation which assumes a priori that the original tale is untrue. And if this article weren't sticking its finger in the eye of religious establishment, it would never have been published.

Pray for us, Saint Patrick, Illuminator of Ireland.

Troparion - Saint Patrick

Holy Bishop Patrick,
Faithful shepherd of Christ's royal flock,
You filled Ireland with the radiance of the Gospel:
The mighty strength of the Trinity!
Now that you stand before the Savior,
Pray that He may preserve us in faith and love!

Kontakion - Saint Patrick

From slavery you escaped to freedom in Christ's service:
He sent you to deliver Ireland from the devil's bondage.
You planted the Word of the Gospel in pagan hearts.
In your journeys and hardships you rivaled the Apostle Paul!
Having received the reward for your labors in heaven,
Never cease to pray for the flock you have gathered on earth,
Holy bishop Patrick!