The Theology of the Martini


Last night, my fiancée and I, both for the first time, had a martini.  When I asked her what she thought of it, she made a comment that my overly-theological mind immediately connected to Pope Bl. John Paul II's Theology of the Body [TOB], which I have been studying this semester.

She said that she liked the first taste and the last taste of the martini, but not the middle taste.  She liked the taste when the martini first touched her taste buds, she disliked the burning sensation that she called the "pre-aftertaste," and she liked the aftertaste.  Upon hearing this, my mind immediately went to the three ages of man discussed in TOB.

The three chapters of Part One of TOB (Cycles 1-3) discuss a triptych of sets of statements by Christ in the Gospels, each relating to marriage.  The first is Christ's rejection of divorce via an appeal to man's beginning in Mt 19:3-8 (TOB 1:2).  The second is Christ's comment about adultery in the heart in Mt 5:27-28 (TOB 24:1).  The third is Christ's response to the Sadducees' attempted mocking of the resurrection in Mk 12:24-27, with additional statements from Lk 20:34-36 (TOB 64:3-4).  From this triptych, John Paul II drew out a theological anthropology, that is, a view of the nature of man according to the ways of God.

From the first set of statements, John Paul II discussed original man, that is, man before the Fall, man in his original holiness (TOB 1-23).  From the second set, John Paul II discussed concupiscent man, man as affected by original sin and its effects (TOB 24-63).  From the third set, John Paul II discussed redeemed man, that is, man as changed by the grace of God received due to Christ (TOB 64-86).  Man was created good; when he sinned, he was altered by concupiscence, and goodness seemed impossible; after Christ came and poured out grace upon him, he had the ability to be divinized by this grace and attain a state even beyond his original goodness.

I see these three states of man (not first thought of by John Paul II, even if the exact terms were chosen by him: one can see this view throughout Christian tradition) in my fiancée's statement on the martini.  The first taste corresponds to the first man, original man, man as created good with his preternatural gifts in the Garden of Eden.  The middle taste, the burning taste that she disliked, corresponds to fallen man, concupiscent man, man choked by sin.  The final taste, the aftertaste, corresponds to redeemed man: after the fall of the middle taste comes the greatness of the aftertaste, just as after the fall of man comes the greatness of redemption.  "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20).  I will extrapolate from my fiancée's statement to suppose she thought the final taste better than the first (for, typologically, that is what should happen): thus, after the "pre-aftertaste," that burn of sin that precedes redemption, comes the greater wondrous taste, the brilliance of the redemptive aftertaste.  From the burn comes the greater taste.  It is reflective of that paradoxical statement of St. Augustine in the Easter Exsultet: "O happy fault, which has merited for us so great a redeemer!"  O happy burn, which has merited for us so great an aftertaste!

Is it disrespectful of the faith?  I pray that it is not.  I see it more as a symbol of God's glorious plan reflected in a creation of man, man made in God's image (cf. Gen 1:26-27).  Thus, whenever I have a martini from now on, I will remember the wondrous plan of God our Saviour, Who has redeemed us and, despite our sin, drawn us into His unapproachable light, making us partakers of His divine nature, divinizing us, making us radiant in the Taboric light.  May we always be able to find the glorious truths of the faith reflected in the world around us, as did Joseph Mary Plunkett did in his worthily famous poem, "I See His Blood Upon the Rose."  May the martini be an example of how we can find Christ in all and thus keep Him always in our minds, "praying unceasingly" (cf. 1 Thes 5:17).

Papież Bł. Jan Paweł II, módl się za nami!
Pope Bl. John Paul II, pray for us!


Nota Bene: The Theology of the Body references are to the edition by Dr. Michael Waldstein, published by Pauline Books & Media in 2006.
 

Text ©2013 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Discuss the Eastern Church: A Grammatical Primer

Image
"To count the terms used in theology as of primary importance, and to endeavor to trace out the hidden meaning in every phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who are idle in the pursuit of true religion, but distinguishing all who get knowledge of the mark of our calling...The beginning of teaching is speech." --St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit I.2 I've often written here of the need to reclaim the Church's bipulmonary nature, that is, the fact that she has two lungs, as Pope Bl. John Paul II loved to say, the West and the East.  I've recently realized that just having people mention the Eastern Church is not enough (though it is certainly a great start): people must also know what they're talking about in regards to Eastern Christianity.  One of the greatest aspects that needs to be cleared up is simply the matter of terminology.  Thus I here attempt to give a quick grammatical primer on terms that are often
Read more

St. Gregory Palamas on the Graven Images

Image
"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God" (Ex 20:4-5a). God's forbidding of graven images is a part of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) that I do not hear mentioned often among Catholics. Since the Decalogue does not have a strict division in the Scriptures themselves, there are multiple ways to divide them. The division commonly used by the Orthodox and most Protestants lists "I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me" and "You shall not make for yourself a graven image" as two separate commandments, while combining "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods" and "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" into one commandment. The division commonly used by Catholics and ma
Read more

Franciscan Fasting

Image
 "Induebar cilicio, humiliabam in ieiunio animam meam, et oratio mea ad sinum meum revertetur." "I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting.  I prayed with head bowed on my bosom."--Ps 35:13. No Christian life is without suffering, for Christ suffered.  Even the most joyful Christian recognizes the necessity of suffering, whether voluntary or no.  The Seraphic Father, St. Francis of Assisi, was no different in this regard.  Yet so many portray him as solely a lover of God's creation (which he most assuredly was).  How many know of his tears, his tears so plentiful that they ran furrows in his cheeks, that they took away his sight?  Who knows of his public self-deprecation when he took a spoonful of meat broth while fasting?  Who knows of his flight into a thorn bush to conquer the passions of the flesh? St. Francis was not just a man of joy who loved God's creation, but he was a man who suffered for the Lord, who mortified himself for t
Read more