I Will Live In You, And You In Me

I was raised Catholic. To date, I enjoy many of the Catholic songs. I was a member of the youth choir when I was 7 years old, attending the practice sessions whenever my sister tagged me along. So I’m familiar with the songs.

I also know about the seven sacraments. My interest today is in the Holy Communion. One of the Swahili songs highlighting the importance of the sacrament goes thus:

Aulaye mwili wangu
Na kuinywa damu yangu (asema Bwana)
Hukaa ndani yangu, nami hukaa, ndani yake

Translated, it reiterates what Jesus told his disciples during the Last Supper. He took the piece of bread, broke it, and told them that the bread was his body. He took the chalice of wine and told them that the wine was his blood. He then told them that anyone who took the bread and the wine would have him inside them, and they, in turn, would live inside Jesus Christ.

It was a powerful message. It has continued to date. Priests all over the world, led by the Pope, continue the practice at every Mass. Versions of the same are present in various Christian denominations, all springing from the Catholic faith, which was the original Christian church, before the various branching outs.

This communion is not new. It did not start with Jesus. Traits of communion exist in many tribes that have never heard of Jesus. The similarities may offer insights into why the practice continues to date. To understand its power, we have to go back to a time when humans practiced hunting, long before the Agrarian Revolution.

Humans have long borrowed traits from animals. Tribes have used animals as totems, identifying with them and borrowing their powerful traits. The Mandeans believed in the buffalo. Their origin story further speaks about the relationship between their tribe and the buffaloes.

As a tightly knit tribe, they could not afford to spread far from their huts. So they performed the Buffalo Dance, hoping to attract the buffaloes closer to their tribe. They would not stop dancing until they got wind of buffalo proximity. From the animal, they got meat, milk, the horns could be used as containers, sacramentals, weapons, shields, among others. The animal was sacred to the people.

Once the buffaloes were within sight, they would go hunting as a pack. Humans hunted in packs, united with a single goal — killing the prey. But unlike the peddled stories of alleged savagery, humans respected the prey, usually as a gift from a force greater than them.

In Avatar, the movie, after hunting down a meal, the members would say a small prayer, thanking Eywa for providing the token. It was a way of honouring what had to die for them to continue living.

Packs are unified in the hunt. They are also equal because of the singular goal. After the prey is down, individuality sets in. The members have to distribute the bounty. They have to commune.

By communing, they symbolically know that they have a portion of the animal in them. Each one who participated in the communion will be united in this regard, even though they are different. It does not matter who got the biggest or the smallest share. Everyone participated in the communion.

Therein marks the transition.

During the hunt, what united and equalized the pack was the prey. The uniting factor was external to the group. After slaughtering it and communing, what united the members was internal, inside them.

These, I argue, were the origins of communion as it is done in religious places. It goes further than that.

I was born like this, since one like this, immaculate conception
I transform like this, perform like this, was Yeshua new weapon

— Kendrick Lamar

When the tribe has shared the price of the hunt, they are unified through communion. They also believe that they will get another version of the same meal in the future. There sits a strong belief among the members who commune together, an unshakeable belief that the meal they just took is not the final one. The provider will give another, and another.

To use the same reference to Mandeans, they would continue their Buffalo Dances until a scout alerted the tribe of the nearing herd of buffaloes. In this regard, the plurality of the buffaloes ensured the sustenance of the tribe. In a sense, they were one.

This identification was especially important. The tribe could imagine itself growing if the buffaloes increased in number. If they reduced, the tribe would shrink. No tribe wishes itself dead. So they firmly believed that there would be a revival of sorts, in the form of a cycle.

Fast forward, and now we have a religion where God sent his Son on Earth to die for our sins. Jesus makes sure that before he parts ways with his disciples, he requests that they commune together. The bread and wine are now the body and blood of the Messiah.

The disciples are united and equal in partaking in the body and the blood, the bread and wine. However, there is no other Jesus to come after this supper. He would later be captured and crucified. But remember, there is an expectation of revival. The provider will come to the rescue of the people.

Indeed, He does. On the third day, Jesus is raised from the dead.

Today, Christians remind themselves of the Last Supper and partake in the Holy Communion. This practice was passed down from Jesus to his disciples, and is now practiced by the clergy.

As the members of the tribe believe they are one with the prey, the faithful congregation believes they are one with the Son of God. Because he lives, they too will live. As Kendrick raps, partakers of the Holy Communion believe Jesus is in their DNA.

Humans believed that the quarry would continue to show up. Buffalo hunting, however, was banned by the American government when the numbers began to decline. In contrast, you cannot ban the Lord and Saviour. What Christ offered was more than what humans had been used to. It was the promise of immortality. To use Kendrick’s words:

I just win again, then win again, like Wimbledon, I serve

At this point, you can cue that song I had used at the start of this article:

Aulaye mwili wangu
Na kuinywa damu yangu (asema Bwana)
Hukaa ndani yangu, nami hukaa, ndani yake

These practices are not complete without either music or prayer.

I began this article with a confession. I was raised Catholic. I know their songs. I hold some of them dear to me, even though I remain skeptical of the faith. Music is a core part of communion.

After humans have hunted a meal, celebration follows. Celebration is not complete without music. These may not mirror the kind of music we are used to. It could be in the form of chants. Chanting is rhythmic, mellodious almost, musical.

Music is a powerful form of prayer. The Psalms are songs to God that double as prayer. Several hymns are excerpts from the Bible, some of which are prayers. Gospel singers convert words from the Bible into song. Whoopi Goldberg’s famous portrayal of the teacher in the highly acclaimed movie, Sarafina, has her students perform our Lord’s Prayer as a song. It’s catchy.

Music accompanies a practice associated with the expectation of revival, of immortality. In the next world, as many Christians believe, there will be endless singing. Music is meant to be eternal.

From ancient folklore, music served as a guide during difficult moments in life. It has frequently been cited as a means to escape trials and tests, as was the case for Orpheus, who travelled to the underworld to rescue her wife, Eurydice, who died after a fatal bite from a viper.

The underworld is teeming with evil spirits. Hades barely spares anyone who walks into his world. And yet, Orpheus convinces him to give him a chance with his wife. Hades consents, but asks one thing of Orpheus — faith.

Music and faith are so intertwined. When players or athletes sing their national anthem, they believe they have the interests of their country at heart. When a bird of paradise sings and dances, it holds onto the faith that the female will give it a mating chance. When Emperor penguins seek their soul mates and their fledglings, they sing their heart song.

And when Christians converge to partake in the Holy Communion, they sing. Besides the belief that Christ will save them on the last day, they add the reinforcement of music, which doubles as a more powerful prayer than a narrated one. Remember, music helped Orpheus escape the wrath of the underworld.

But Orpheus did not believe that he was close to getting his wife back. Burdened with doubt, he looked back and lost the love of his life again. The agreement with Hades was that he should not look back, but cling to the faith that his wife was with him, behind him.

Faith is essential to believe in the miraculous. It is not enough to sing. You have to believe in the power of the music. It is not enough to commune with your fellow people, or participate in the Holy Communion. You have to believe it will come to pass, that salvation awaits you.

And here’s the point where I would put the question to you: Bearing in mind that these practices preceded the spread of the Christian religion, what is one to believe in? Christ? Human practices?

The idea behind the Holy Communion has traces in numerous tribes, even those that were never preached to by missionaries about the healing power of Jesus Christ.

But if similar practices have always existed, does that justify the Holy Communion, or does it explain why it has been widely adopted in many religious faiths?

Tribes could see that after slaughtering a totem animal, they could get another when they went out to hunt. What evidence is there that immortality awaits Christians other than the story written in a book, the Bible?

Or is this the point where faith should come in?

But why should faith accompany music? Music in and of itself is already powerful enough. More than that, it is present in all known human settlements in the past. The caves where humans would gather have art in the points with the best acoustics.

Now doesn’t the practice of communing and the human history with music point to a practice that can continue without the need for religion?

The Orphic myths have been discovered in many civilizations. Radcliffe G. Edmundson has counted over 50 Native American tribes*, which throws the spanner into the works: Why should one story dominate the others?

You tell me.

*Radcliffe G. Edmundson III. Redefining Ancient Orphism: A Study in Greek Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 186-187.

This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube