Anyone who knows me well enough is privy to the fact that I have a sweet tooth and a sweeter tooth for chocolates. Bring me a bar of rich chocolate and you will have my loyalty! One of the many blessings of being temporarily sojourned in Europe is finding myself on the continent which takes its chocolates seriously. So I was pleasantly shocked when I came across a beautiful article by Sara Maitland in ‘The Tablet‘ in which she performs a spiritual dissection of chocolate, like I’ve never read before. I have her to thank for combining two things that I love very much: Chocolates and Faith.
Easter eggs in Mumbai are mostly made from marzipan, but in Europe and the continental US, you will find them made of chocolate. Chocolate eggs are becoming increasingly visible in Mumbai as well. When we look at how chocolate is made, it resounds so much with what Easter is all about, and that makes it totally appropriate for celebrating God’s providential love for us. Chocolates are traditionally gifted on special occasions and we all know that the quintessential NRI family relative returning home cannot step foot on Mumbai soil without bringing a bag of ‘foreign’ chocolates! Well, that’s why Duty-Free stores at practically every airport are stocked with the best pieces of heavenly temptations.
At Easter, God gives us His greatest gift, and therefore celebrating this joy with chocolates is wholly appropriate. Chocolate is the “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”. Converting the natural cacao bean into edible chocolate is a complicated, laborious process involving fermentation, drying, cleaning, roasting, shelling, grinding and heating, just to produce unadulterated chocolate in a rough form, which can then be refined and flavoured. It therefore involves great labour. And this reminds us of the sweat and tears that Jesus underwent during his Passion and Death. A seed must fall to the earth and die before it yields its rich fruit. It’s the same with the cacao seed.
Easter changes our mood. We have been low-key, introspective, repentant and sorrowful through the Lenten season. But on Easter, our joy bursts forth on receiving the Good News of our Saviour’s victory over sin and death. Chocolate is also a mood-enhancer. Don’t let me remind you of all those times when you have reached for a bar of chocolate during those depressing and low emotional moments. I have too. It lifts our spirits and makes us feel good; it takes away some of the pain and brings us comfort (Maybe you are an ice-cream person, it depends. What about chocolate ice-cream?! OMG).
Chocolate is unusually ‘mouldable‘ – it can take a great many different forms and flavours. Like God’s living grace poured into our hearts, it can be ‘different’ for each person, while still unified in one body. There are forms of chocolate for children and for the most sophisticated adults; you can combine it with your favourite flavours and avoid those you don’t like. This individual adaptation to need and desire shows how God works differently in each of our lives, he is generous and sensitive. There is no rigid formula for everyone.
The untreated cacao bean is extremely bitter, like the vinegar that Jesus was offered on the Cross. It is only through a long laborious process that it becomes sweet to us. The bean must be gathered (arrested), dried (“I Thirst“), shelled and ground (scourged and crucified), fermented (placed in the grave) and so transformed into sweetness and joy (resurrection).
This is why chocolate is such an appropriate symbol for Easter. So next time, when you crave for a piece of chocolate, don’t feel guilty. Let it remind you of the great love that God has for you. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” Or as Forrest Gump famously said “Life is a box of chocolates.”
(Some sentences have been quoted verbatim from Sara Maitland’s original article. The rest is my own chocolate-induced frenzy.)
Fr Joshan Rodrigues is the Managing Editor of The Examiner, Catholic Newsweekly of the Archdiocese of Bombay. He is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome in Institutional and Social Communications. He has done brief stints with the DeSales Media Group in Brooklyn, New York and Communications Office of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, London. He frequently blogs on faith and culture on his wonderful blog: ‘Musings in Catholic Land’