What Coffee and the Mass Have In Common

I love when people can break complex ideas down into simple analogies! It’s how Jesus taught (parables) and I stumbled upon a column by Steve Skojec called The Rubrics of Coffee.  This is a beautiful anaology of the liturgy.  Steve takes the process by which we make coffee.  You can make coffee that’s been ground about 3 months ago, stick it in your Mr. Coffee coffee maker and drink it.  You can also buy and grind the beans yourself, you can use a french press, etc.  The difference in tastes between the processes is pretty big. He compares this to liturgy.  How sometimes it seems rigid or ridiculous, but in fact it’s necessary.  It’s why we write out grandma’s chili recipe that’s so good so that we can recreate it when she can’t make it for us anymore.

God imbues a sacramental order into the things of this world to help us grasp these higher concepts. In writing down the detailed instructions that would help my sister-in-law make good coffee, I became aware of the presence of implicit ritual — ritual that was not the result of desire or personal taste, but of necessity.

It’s a very cool analogy that I hadn’t thought about before. Read the full column at InsideCatholic.com.