By Father Kyle
The popular AMC series The Walking Dead, from which has sprung several other related series, is a lot more than just another zombie thriller. While it is certainly true that the 11 seasons of this show contribute to a vast array of undead entertainment, including films like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland, and World War Z, this show is more of a commentary on human nature than it is a horror series. In The Walking Dead, as its storyline progresses with increasing brutality, one sees and understands that the surviving human communities and individuals are actually a greater threat to each other than the hordes of flesh-eating monsters and the mysterious virus that they spread. In every season, there seems to be a new human camp or compound with its own tyrannical dictator that threatens Rick Grimes (the main character of the series) and his followers, and as time progresses and they are forced to migrate from place to place, they themselves become as ruthless as those who try to conquer or enslave them. In a way, many of the humans who survive the initial outbreak are the real walking dead because they have forfeited their souls in doing everything they can to survive and scavenge resources, including killing and pillaging each other.
The creators and designers of The Walking Dead quickly gained fame and popularity for the disturbingly realistic costuming and make-up of the zombies in the show, which in my humble opinion far surpasses any other zombie show or movie I have ever seen, but they equally succeeded in presenting a very realistic post-apocalyptic society, in which Godlessness and immorality show forth their hideous fruits. If we take a look around us, at our American culture and at our world as a whole, we can see them vividly. Not only are we still very much living in a culture of death with regard to sins like abortion, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide, but we are also living in a culture and in a world where rage and violence are more and more the norm in human interactions. I’m not just talking about gangs, guns, and terrorism. I’m also talking about the heightened polarization that we see manifested in our politics. I’ve seen this in my own family, and I’m sure that many of you here today have seen it in yours. Civilized conversation and debate have given way to hateful arguments, ad hominem attacks, and all manner of logical fallacies aimed at belittling people on the opposite side of the political or religious spectrum. Furthermore, our increasingly strong attachment to worldly things like smartphones and artificial intelligence are turning many people into beings that exist for pleasure and possession, rather than living for God and one another. All the things I just mentioned are but symptoms of a terrible illness – a pervasive and growing atheism that is both theoretical and practical, the actual belief that there is no God and therefore no genuine or meaningful human dignity and believing in God while living as if He doesn’t exist. Clearly then, The Walking Dead is not mere fictional entertainment. It is very real because there are many in the world, in our country, and in the Church who are dead inside.
In today’s Gospel reading, in speaking about the mystery of the Holy Eucharist that He would institute at the Last Supper with His apostles, Jesus says to the crowds, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.” He says this amid the fighting that is occurring among the Jews because of His bold statement “…and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus does not back down from this. He doesn’t try to quell the quarrel by explaining that what He is saying is a metaphor or symbol for something. In fact, He does the exact opposite by going from using the regular Greek word (phago) for “eat” to using a more graphic one (trogo) that means “chew,” a word used in describing how animals eat. He begins by saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you….” (“I tell you most solemnly (or seriously…”) and then forcefully asserts that they do not and cannot share in His divine life if they do not do what He is telling them. In fact, in the passage of His Bread of Life Discourse that we heard today, we hear about “eating His flesh” and “drinking His blood” three times. In one of those times, He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…,” implying that those who don’t do not possess it. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales puts it eloquently:
Christians who are damned will be unable to make any reply when the just Judge shows them how much they are to blame for dying spiritually, since it was so easy for them to maintain themselves in life and in health by eating his Body which he had left them for this purpose. “Unhappy souls,” he will say, “why did you die, seeing that you had at your command the fruit and the food of life?” In this, we are to understand and believe without a doubt that frequently and worthily receiving Christ in Holy Communion is absolutely necessary for the life of the soul.
What infinite love He has for us and shows us in giving Himself to us as food and drink, so that He can always be inside us, so that we can have a deep, intimate union with Him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, a union that He desires more than anything, a union He passionately prayed for at the Last Supper, seated with His chosen band of disciples. It is not enough for us to be “good people.” It is not enough for us to go to the Mass once in a while. It is not enough for us to be here every Sunday or even every day, and it is not enough for us to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. If our eating His Body and drinking His Blood is to achieve its desired and intended goal and bring us to eternal salvation with Him in His Kingdom, then we must also let ourselves and encourage ourselves to feel the solemnity and wonder of this Sacrament and let Him change us from within our bodies and souls, in which He has deigned to dwell. We must allow Him to transform us into Himself, into Catholics, into Christians who live to love and serve Him and their neighbor. That’s the life that we are called to bring into this lost world – the life of the One who has made us living tabernacles. With so many undead existing around us, we are called to be joyfully alive in Jesus Christ, so that more and more people, other Christians and non-Christians alike, will be drawn to enter into full communion with the Church that He founded on the apostles and receive the only food and drink that brings everlasting life.
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