Comments on: Why your Ward Christmas party was a religious ritual

By: Heather Flanagan

Heather Flanagan — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 04:44:23 +0000

Your mention of “conspicious consumption” caught my eye as I am getting more and more concerned about the effects it is having on our planet. But I won’t write my whole rant here. Why read the book when you can see the movie…

http://peoplegeek.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/holiday-conspicuous-consumption-rant/

By: paula

paula — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:39:52 +0000

I think that the term “funeral potatoes” came from women my age (48) or so. Our own mothers used to make funeral potatoes and take them to everything, and it was a joke with women in my age, who would have been too cool and hip, we thought, to do such a thing. I think we were probably also the ones that started the jokes about jello– at least my mother took the jello salads seriously and got a bit cranky when I would tell her they were tacky. But now even KSL’s cooking segment on the news has done a bit on funeral potatoes (which we’ll be having for dinner here in awhile.) To make the jello salad with the fruit in it you let the jello set up for awhile, but not all the way, then add the fruit, if I remember right. I may make funeral potatoes now, but I draw the line at jello salads.

By: Thomas Parkin

Thomas Parkin — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 07:02:52 +0000

A meaningless aside to follow:

I just got back from my sister’s. I see her a couple times a year – she lives a few hours away. Anyway – we had with our ham some red jello with assorted fruit suspended (I’m never sure how this is done – wouldn’t the fruit sink to the bottom of the unset gelatin?) (scrumptious, btw), and,- significantly,- potatoes. As the potatoes come to the table, I’m astonished to hear Corinne announce “these are the funeral potatoes.” Here’s the strange thing: in spite of being raised in the church, in the Western U.S., until the Mormon brackets bit I’d never heard of funeral potatoes. And now, within days, funeral potatoes again! And from a member of my immediate family, no less! Hey, I’ve read the Celestine Prophecy and some CG Jung – what’s the chance that this is only coincidence? Clearly God is trying to tell me something!

By: bryce

bryce — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 01:33:42 +0000

This year our ward did the very Unconventional thing for Christmas. We had a ward Christmas Breakfast Party.

All you can eat breakfast followed by a family christmas skit and a special appearance by Alvin and Chipmucks (assisted by a cannister of helium.)

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 20:05:34 +0000

the 1835 D&C, section 101, urges that marriages among the LDS occur at a “public meeting, or a feast.” I think that’s Cowdery’s articles of marriage, but i’m feeling too lazy to go check. i miss the great feasts of the near east. our Georgian friends (caucasus) love to tell us about wedding and funeral feasts there that stretch for 2-3 days. As soon as you wake at the table from your wine-enhanced slumber, there’s another plate of food waiting for you. now that’s community.

By: Clair

Clair — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 19:07:37 +0000

After fifty years of weekly church-going and sacrament-taking, my views were realigned recently by reading John 13-17 in light of our sacrament ordinance.

A theme of Jesus’ words in that upper room where he introduces the ordinance of bread and wine was his hope for love and unity among his followers:

“If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one anotherâ€™s feet.”

“A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

“These things I command you, that you love one another.”

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:”

When young, I struggled with the instruction to “remember Jesus” during the sacrament. I knew only so much and could repeat it in my mind only so many times before wandering to other thoughts or fidgeting. Now I am remembering his words and his hopes for his saints. Our itsy piece of bread isn’t much of a meal with our fellow-saints, but we can use it to ponder our common journey and remind us of the love our Savior would have us feel for each other.

Passing the tray along the bench is a fleeting service, but we can use that act to remember our Savior’s desire that we feed and otherwise succor each other.

Some months ago, I inadvertently said aloud, “Thank you,” to the Deacon who handed my a tray. We don’t usually do that (as my wife reminded me). But we can think it, and think of all the other kindnesses shown by our fellow saints as we participate in the meal that Jesus wanted his disciples to share with each other.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 22:36:54 +0000

My understanding is that when the GAs have the sacrament at their Thursday meetings, instead of tearing the bread into itsy bitsy pieces they tear it into quarters so that they have a more substantial piece.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 18:41:57 +0000

Ronan, this is a wonderful post. Food is one of the major things my family does whenever we get together (preparation (with much fanfare) and the actual eating).

I love the aspect of the Eucharist that is being discussed. I think that with the end of re-baptism and the casting of the sacrament as a re-baptism, much of the communal aspect of the ritual has waned. Zebedee Coltrin described the Sacrament of the Lord’s supper at the Kirtland School of Prophets:

…the sacrament was also administered at times when Joseph appointed, after the ancient order that is, warm bread to break easy was provided and broken into pieces as large as my fist and each person had a glass of wine and sat and ate the bread and drank the wine; and Joseph said that was the way that Jesus and his disciples partook of bread and wine. (Minutes, Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, October 3, 1883 – Hat tip to Kris for sharing this with me).

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:19:17 +0000

at AAR/SBL this year there was a whole session on eating at the tombs, apparently Roman Christians relatively early on began celebrating the Eucharist directly with their dead, at the site of their inhumation. Even without the explicit funerary overtones, I see the Eucharist as a sacred meal that binds the living to the dead as well as to each other.

We go through phases, the wife and I, of wanting to begin to celebrate a fuller meal of communion but suspect we would soon be outed as religious freaks. I look forward to reading the full piece.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:25:59 +0000

I like to remember that the Sacrament actually originated in the early Church as a part of an actual meal, called the agape or “love” feast.

We attended a pizza party to watch the Las Vegas Bowl, too–probably a very Mormon occurrence.

Ronan, tell us about this forthcoming volume–who is doing it and where will it be published?