PIG,  PORK  AND  PEPPERONI

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this  33rd  Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Pig, Pork and Pepperoni.”

PIGS IN THE SCRIPTURES

In today’s first reading from the Second Book of Maccabees, we have this story about a man named Eleazar being forced to eat pork. If he didn’t take some, it would mean death. And he had the courage to not eat pork, so he’s killed.  

The story and the text gets us in touch with the religious practice of Jews not eating pork. The Moslems pick up the same practice as well as the Seven Day Adventists.

If we read the scriptures with this one practice in mind, we can learn a lot about religious practices of people.

I assumed that pork didn’t store well - so people got quite sick from pig and pork productions - so to save people - religious leaders yelled that God doesn’t want you to each pig and pork. I don’t know when pepperoni hit the world scene.

THE HAM IN THE PAN

Last night as I was putting this homily together I was trying to remember the story about the ham in the pan.

A teenage girl is watching her mom working on a ham for Christmas dinner.

At one point her mom cuts off the thin end of the ham.  Her teenage daughter asked her mom why she cut off that small end of the ham.

“Well,” her mom said, “this is the way you cook a ham.”  Then she added, “That’s the way my mother did it.”

Well she sees her grandmother cooking a ham at another time and sure enough that end piece had been cut off. Her granddaughter asked her, “Why she did it that way?”

Her grandmother said, “Well, that’s the way you cook ham. And that’s the way my mom taught me.”

Her great-grandmother was still alive, so the teenage girl asked her - while visiting her in a nursing home. “I noticed,” she said to her great-grandmother, “that your granddaughter my mom, your daughter her mom, cut off the end piece of a ham before cooking it. They told me that you did that. Why?"

“Oh,” said the great grandmother, "I guess the reason was because the pan was too small.”

Question: how many things do we do in life because that’s the way they are always done?

Question: how many things in religion do we do because that’s the way we always did them?

AN ARTICLE

I’d like to read a good article on all this.

The article would have to get into how altar girls took a while to get established as altar girls.

I would assume that women switching to pant suits from dresses would be an interesting point to ponder in that article.

So too the English Mass? 

Look how the world is changing in its attitudes towards gays.

Will there be a switch to women priests one of these years?

Is that the history of the world when it comes to changes?

Someone makes a move. Upset happens. It continues. More upset happens. It’s condemned. Then it continues - continues - continues.

I would hope the article would also get into seeing the mass as a Meal - get into eating at Mass - the bread - and the comments that Jesus is the Lamb of God - and how in the Acts of the Apostles this comes up - with arguments about Christianity moving out of Jewish background into world background.

Then there are Hindu’s refusing to eat beef.

THE WASHING OF HANDS AT MASS

At the Mass the priest washes his hands at the offertory.

I’ve always heard that it was because of all the food folks brought and handed to the priest - and then it was distributed to the poor - and hands got food dirty.

With the outbreaks of the flu virus - in came those pump bottles of hand cleaner - we see in so many churches. I like to joke that it might become part of the Mass in 200 years.

When a deacon serves as deacon  at Mass I noticed that he pours the wine etc. into the chalices - but then washes the priests hands.  I like the water because sometimes the wine is sticky on the cruets and it’s nice to have an opportunity to wash away the stickiness. So it should be the deacon who washes his hands or maybe the priest should wash the deacon’s hands.

CONCLUSION

So human beings do a lot of stuff out of custom and from earlier generations. I suspect the best approach is the ability to laugh. For starters, we could look at bishops hats and blessings and all that - as well as family customs.

In the meanwhile, this is good stuff to talk about while eating pig, pork or pepperoni - maybe pizza. I’m not a great lover of pork, but I do love a ham and cheese sandwich - and a pizza with  ham, pepperoni and pineapple.