In Eating Beauty, Sr. Ann Astell gives us a wide look at the Eucharistic formation of several different religious orders and individual saints who lived within the Middle Ages. She showcases for us the diverse expressions of the way that these saints have been shaped by “eating beauty.” Astell states in her conclusion, “This book has joined the beauty of the sacrament, which is to be eaten, with the beauty of the saints, those “distinctive” faces of Christ that cannot represent him mimetically, but nevertheless make Him vitally present in the world. Because they have been “eaten” by Christ, consumed by the God they receive in Communion, and virtuously changed by Him, they glorify Him. They bear His mark in the conversion, the transformation, of their lives” (Astell 258). Astell shows us the visibility of the saints as the effect of eating beauty. A study of their unique lives clues us in as readers to the multitude of ways in which we too can be transformed and the formation we can offer to others.
One of the paths of eucharistic formation mentioned by Sr. Ann Astell is the Cistercians and their understanding of the “twinned houses” of Sacred Scripture and the Eucharist are one path of formation for entering into a life of Eucharistic beauty. The imagery and language used by St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the way in which we read the Word was not unfamiliar to me but when placed within the conversation of the Eucharist, the two houses are now forever linked in my mind as well. The way in which we often say that “the Word reads us” as we read the Word now seems to be mirrored image of the understanding that Sr. Ann offers of how we are not the only ones consuming; as we consume Christ, He is also consuming us.
Our understanding of consumption is crucial, as beings who necessarily must be sustained by what we consume. We can think of formation as our structured and intentional consumption, as we carefully nourish a child to help them grow, so too did these heads of religious orders seek to understand how to grow more and more into Christ, and to know how to “feed” those who they form. Their lives each show the unique ways in which eating beauty transforms us. They even vary on the way we understand what it is to consume. Astell also introduces us to an understanding of consuming that it is not just physical. Through the authors of Simone Weil and Edith Stein, we are brought to the idea of consuming by sight to contemplate. For both of these women, the practice of Eucharistic adoration was vital to their spiritual formation. Here again, we do not just gaze upon Christ in the Host, but we too are gazed upon.
The consumption of beauty in these ways of formation leads one to offer up their themselves to that which they consume. One who is formed in this way may find themselves with an understanding similar to the vision of St. Rose of Lima when she saw herself being carved into a work of art, made into something beautiful, although through great pain (Astell 181). But that beautiful work of art is visible, it is Christ made visible again to the world. While the beauty of the Eucharist remains hidden, Christ is continually making it visible to the world through his saints, those who are transformed and made beautiful through their mutual consumption.