Decoding Bloom: The Opiate of the Mass
“Look at all my trials and tribulations/ Sinking in a gentle pool of wine/ What's that in the bread? It's gone to my head/ 'Till this morning is this evening, life is fine.” - “The Last Supper,” Jesus Christ Superstar
This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line.
The passage below comes from “Lotus Eaters,” the fifth episode of Ulysses. It appears on pages 80 and 81 in my copy (1990 Vintage International).
To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here and here.
It’s been said that there are no former Catholics - only recovering Catholics. James Joyce certainly fell into this category whether he liked it or not, and though he abandoned his faith as a young man, Catholic culture, theology and philosophy permeate his literary works. On his 50th birthday, Joyce received a cake with a candy replica of Ulysses atop it, to which he quipped, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” meaning “For this is my body,” a phrase familiar to any Catholic, recovering or otherwise. While some commentators see this anecdote as evidence that Joyce’s aesthetic, on the page and off, was centered on the Eucharist. Others (myself included) see this as evidence that Joyce had a wicked sense of humor.
The Eucharist, or Holy Communion, is the main event of any Catholic Mass, through which bread and wine are ritually transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ and then consumed by the faithful. This sacred rite is lampooned and satirized more than once over the course of Ulysses, including on the first page of the novel. Rather than Buck Mulligan’s ungentlemanly mockery, we now see the Eucharist through the eyes of Leopold Bloom. Unable to resist the “smell of cold stone,” he steps through the rere door of All Hallows’ Catholic Church:
“Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed.”
It seems Bloom expected to find an empty sanctuary, but instead a weekday Mass is in full swing, perhaps for a sodality, meaning a religious confraternity or other religious association. They are identifiable as a group by their “crimson halters,” which are identified in most commentaries as scapulars.
Rosary and devotional scapular
Scapulars come in two varieties - devotional (pictured to the right) and monastic. Devotional scapulars are worn by people who do not belong to a monastic order. A monastic scapular is a fuller, over-the-shoulder garment worn by a monk or nun. This may be what Bloom is describing here when he notes the women’s “crimson halters.” The “hats” Bloom describes could be veils, I suppose, though this stretches the definition of hat, in my opinion. On the other hand,I don't think that any secular head gear would be worn during a church service. There’s too little detail to really know much about this group, but if they are indeed nuns, they may be Redemptoristine nuns, who wear a red scapular.
In any case, I’ve already spent far more time thinking about these worshipers than our gallant hero did, so let’s turn back to him. Bloom takes a moment to fantasize about what a great place a church would make for a secret rendezvous. Maybe Martha? “Could meet one Sunday after the rosary.” Or perhaps the other unnamed mystery woman that Bloom remembers from a past Midnight Mass. Is he taking “love thy neighbor” a little too literally? The pious women he beholds receiving Holy Communion cut a sharp contrast to the women that Bloom prefers to fantasize about. He continues:
“A batch knelt at the altarrails.The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman.”
A ciborium
“The thing” is a ciborium, a ceremonial chalice that holds the consecrated hosts used for Holy Communion. Bloom refers to one as “a communion,” which is sort of cute. The hosts are not kept in water (I imagined they would get pretty mushy if they were). The gesture Bloom mistakes for shaking off drops of water is the priest performing the Sign of the Cross.
All this is to say, Bloom knows very little about Catholicism, possibly less than he knows about Judaism. Identifying the host and the Sign of the Cross are Catholicism 101. Bloom is not a practicing Catholic, but rather a Catholic on paper, as he converted in order to marry Molly. It’s hard to imagine someone even nominally completing a religious conversion without at least passively learning these things. A Mass is incorporated into a Catholic wedding, so we can infer that Bloom has been to a full Mass at least once. Despite this evidence to the contrary, it would be a mistake to conclude that Bloom is simply ignorant or obtuse, however. He may simply just not care to learn the proper names of things, as we shall see.
“The priest bent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus: body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it.”
The Eucharist, or Holy Communion, as I stated above, is the main event in a Catholic Mass. Essentially a re-enactment of the Last Supper, this ritual is believed by the faithful, through the process of transubstantiation, to transform ceremonial bread (the host) and wine into Christ’s body and blood. This is not considered a symbolic or metaphorical process, but a literal transformation through the ritual power of the Mass.
Prior to the 1960’s, ordinary people did not accept the host with their hands. Instead, the priest placed it directly on their tongue. To Bloom, this looks like a mother coaxing her child into eating their peas. Sharing his creator’s sense of humor, he pretends the priest’s Latin is a bit of the nursery rhyme, “Open your mouth/ And close your eyes/ And I’ll give you something/ To make you wise.”
Bloom tries to catch a bit of the priest’s muttered Latin and hears “corpus,” meaning “body,” as in “Body of Christ.” Bloom, a cunning linguist, notes that “corpse” indeed derives from the Latin “corpus.” To Bloom, the rhythmic yet unintelligible Latin lulls and soothes the communicants, “stupefies” them even. In celebrating the Eucharist, the faithful join the ranks of the many Lotus Eaters we meet in this episode, blissful and unaware, totally in thrall of the lotus’ distributor, the priest. If they close their eyes and open their mouths, they’re at his mercy. Is it faith or stupor that allows them to believe that he is placing a holy object on their tongue?
Ever a practical thinker, Bloom tries to discover a practical reason for the priest to address a crowd in a dead language. Bloom admires the ritual as an instance of clever marketing - the Latin as a sort of advertising slogan, lulling and entrancing the worshippers and selling them the notion of salvation and everlasting life until they’ve fully bought into it. But are they so enraptured with their faith that they would ritually consume flesh? Bloom amuses himself with the idea. I’m not sure what Bloom’s understanding of transubstantiation is, but his comments are not born out of ignorance. Instead, he’s enjoying an opportunity to dunk on a ritual he finds fairly silly.
Bloom is not alone in entertaining the idea that receiving Holy Communion is akin to cannibalism. As far back as the Middle Ages, the pious were concerned that damaging the host could be a means of torturing Christ and that merely pricking a host would cause it to bleed. I think this is where the tradition of not chewing the host may originate. My mother, who received her First Communion in the early 1960’s, recalls the nuns at her school warning the children if they bit into the host, it would bleed and blood would run out of their mouths in church. While this is fairly metal, it’s also a horrific thing to tell small children.
No less eminent a person than St. Thomas Aquinas commented on this concern. He explained that though transubstantiation results in a literal transformation of the ceremonial bread and wine, it is a spiritual transformation rather than a physical one. Aquinas wrote in The Summa Theologica:
“First of all, because it is not customary, but horrible, for men to eat human flesh, and to drink blood. And therefore Christ’s flesh and blood are set before us to be partaken of under the species of those things which are more commonly used by man, namely bread and wine. Secondly, lest this sacrament be derided by unbelievers, if we were to eat our lord, under his own species.”
So, sorry, Satanists, cancel your weekend plans: you can’t torture Christ by abusing the host.
In fact, believing that you could is a heresy in itself - the heresy of sensualism, of placing a material reality above a spiritual reality. Mulligan, therefore, would be a sensualist heretic since he claims that his “Mass” atop the Martello Tower could transform his shaving cream into the Blood of Christ. Thanks to Joyce’s Jesuit education, he would have been well-versed in the works of Aquinas and aware of this Eucharistic doctrinal conundrum. By employing this heretical argument, Joyce is able to simultaneously show the absurdity of both the heresy and the sacrament.
“He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened shewbread.”
Bloom takes a pew and continues to watch the proceedings. He’s not far off the mark about the bread used during Communion. As mentioned above, Holy Communion is based on the Last Supper, which was a Passover celebration where unleavened bread would have been used. In “Ithaca”, Bloom recalls celebrating Passover with his father: “An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual prayers for Pessach (Passover)....” Surely Bloom would have encountered matzo (mazzoth) at this celebration. Likewise, the shewbread (or showbread) displayed in the Temple of Jerusalem can be seen as a forerunner to the Eucharist. The shewbread is a symbolic sacrifice to God which is consumed each week by priests on the Sabbath.
Even a misinformed Bloom is right twice a day.
“Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. Let off steam.”
Leaning heavily on the supposed narcotic effects of the ritual of the Mass, Bloom imagines that receiving the Body of Christ must leave you with a hell of a buzz, brought on by feeling the Kingdom of God within you. Or maybe you just feel happy, like a kid getting a lollipop. Again, Bloom infantilizes the parishioners he’s observing, pointing out how superficial their actions appear to him as an outsider. Just as he interpreted the priest’s Latin as a child’s nursery rhyme, he now sees Holy Communion as a yummy lolly.
He tosses in another bit of rhyme here, “Hokypoky penny a lump.” “Hokypoky” is a corruption of “Hoc est… Corpus”, and here the allusion refers to a nursery rhyme called “The King of the Cannibal Islands,” which was later set to music. Bloom often uses popular culture to connect to more complex topics, and the Eucharist is no exception. It’s certainly no coincidence that he uses a song about cannibals in this context, either. Bloom’s allusion is unrelated to the Hokey Pokey dance (or Hokey Cokey, depending on which side of the Atlantic you live) which became a hit during World War II. Ironically, in 2008, Anglican Canon Matthew Damon claimed that the Hokey Pokey dance was a parody of the Catholic Mass, so perhaps there’s some arcane crossover somewhere.
Despite his nominal Catholicism, Bloom has never felt Catholic in the way the faithful in All Hallows’ do, either as an expression of a deeply held faith or as a matter of cultural habit. Children receive their First Communion at the age of seven, with the promise of experiencing the warm glow of the Holy Spirit or actual angels upon receiving the “bread of angels,” as Bloom calls it. Poet Michael Hartnett captures the disappointment of not achieving such heights of ecstasy in his poem “Crossing the Iron Bridge”:
“Back to the human-hampered light,/ my arms in white rosettes,/ I walked: my faith was dead./ Instead of glory on my tongue/ there was the taste of bread.”
While I don’t think Bloom has any deep, abiding belief in the Holy Spirit, he may have thought he’d find out what all the fuss was about when he took Communion and then felt nothing but a bland wafer slowly dissolving in saliva. I think he’s looking at these people who are having such a profoundly different experience and wondering what they feel. Is it happiness - silly, loopy happiness like a child with a lollipop or a high like an adult on a narcotic drug? Perhaps it’s not a spiritual transformation at all, but rather the comfort of belonging to a community. They’re experiencing the warm, cozy comfort of knowing their place in the world, exemplified by their shared ritual - a comfort that eludes Bloom, an outsider in his home city.
Bloom’s insight that taking Communion gives one a place in the Catholic community recalls the ad copy of Plumtree's Potted Meat. Consuming the Eucharist, just like consuming the body and blood of whatever poor creatures were reconstituted into the potted meat, will allow you to enter an abode of bliss. Not so lonely then. Though we begin to slip back into the sensualist realm, Bloom shows us the overlap between easily digestible ad campaigns and the promise of religious rituals. Perhaps those Jesuits in China and Africa had some really killer slogans to woo the unbaptized millions.
Or maybe it’s just the spectacle of the Mass that’s such a draw. Bloom likens attending Mass to the theatre, and the experience of coming “out a bit spreeish” after the show. I think he’s talking about the post-show high one might feel after seeing a show. Think of TV ads where they interview people on the street right after they’ve seen a live show and rave about how great it was. Those same people might be less enthusiastic about Tarzan on Ice a week or month later. A Catholic Mass has many theatrical qualities - music, incense, costumes. Bloom wonders if the parishioners are just caught up in the show.
“Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.”
Getting caught up in this particular show can lead to believing in some fairly odd things. Like that water from a particular spring in Lourdes, France can cure your ailments (you can buy Lourdes water online nowadays; you don’t even need to make the pilgrimage!). Or that statues can bleed to test your faith or that the Blessed Virgin will appear on the side of a parish church in the West of Ireland, one day leading to a basilica and airport being built in that same tiny town to accommodate the annual pilgrims (although Bloom wouldn’t know about Knock Airport).
In Ireland, the power of these kinds of miracles hold a powerful draw for the faithful well into the modern era, such as the phenomenon of moving statues in Cork that gripped the nation in the mid-1980’s. Believing in an apparition of the Virgin Mary or that a statue moves is deeply meaningful to a religious person but deeply bizarre to someone not “in the same swim,” as Bloom puts it. Bloom the Materialist has no special belief in the supernatural or the spiritual, highlighting his outsider status in such a religious culture. We’ve questioned on the blog in the past whether Bloom was really Catholic or Jewish, and we see here a way in which Bloom is definitely not Catholic. Belief in Lourdes Water or the Knock Apparition aren’t required to to be a good Catholic, but knowing that so many do believe in these miracles (or absurdities, depending on one’s point of view) is enough to make Bloom feel alienated.
“Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year.”
Perhaps faith just leads to narcosis, like the old man who’s fallen asleep at Mass. The sleeping man is one of the clearest examples of Holy Communion as a Homeric Lotus, as Stuart Gilbert wrote in Ulysses: A Study: "Thus those who ate of the honey-sweet lotus had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but chose to abide there forgetful of returning."
“Safe in the Arms of Jesus” is a Protestant hymn containing the line “Safe in the arms of kingdom come.” This line, for me, conjures an image of this sleepy old gent curled up like a babe in the cradled arms of Jesus, like a child who fell asleep during Mass. It reminds me of the times my mom let me sleep in the pew beside her at Midnight Mass. Perhaps there’s a tinge of envy in Bloom’s thoughts as he observes the man’s deep repose.
“He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to. Bald spot behind.”
The priest’s lacy alb serves as a call back to Bloom’s earlier recollection of the two sluts in the Coombe. While he wondered at women’s mysteriously infinite supply of pins, the sluts’ drunken song surfaced in his memory, “O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers./ She didn’t know what to do/ To keep it up,/To keep it up.”
Bloom’s response to their bawdy song in the earlier passage was to critique the grammar rather than to appreciate the saucy innuendo. Juxtaposing the priest’s elaborate ceremonial vestment with the song of sex workers allows Bloom to deepen his skepticism about this holy man and the institution he represents. The pomp and circumstance of Mass really is a show, a pantomime, no different to the songs of whores. They might as well invite Turko the Terrible. In this previous passage, the two sluts merged with the Biblical figures Mary and Martha:
“Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the two sluts in the Coombe would listen.”
The story he’s referring to is found in Luke 10:38-42. Jesus visits the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His words while Martha fluttered around the house, focusing instead on hosting duties. Martha got annoyed and asked Jesus to tell her sister to help with the serving. Jesus replied:
“... Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Mary focused on spiritual needs while Martha focused on the mundane, and therefore Mary’s work was more important in the eyes of Jesus. Martha was a sensualist of sorts, tending to material comforts, and in the process, neglecting her spiritual needs. Interestingly, Bloom is less suspicious of the sluts than the priest, thinking the sluts would have listened to Jesus speak like Mary. Afterall, Jesus’ followers included Mary Magdalene, a sex worker, but no priests. The priest, with all his material comforts, is further from divinity than the two sluts, arms linked in the rain.
“Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S. Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in.”
Coat of Arms of Pope Francis
Trying to remember a bit of trivia, Bloom appears merely inquisitive here, rather than sarcastic or derogatory. I.N.R.I. stands for Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Judæorum, Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” There’s some irony to Bloom misinterpreting this initialism, as the term “King of the Jews” is mainly used by Gentiles in the New Testament, whereas Jewish leaders refer to Jesus as the “King of Israel.” I.H.S. is referred to as a Christogram and represents the first three letters of “Christ” in Greek: IHΣΟΥΣ (Jesus). I.H.S. has also been adopted as an emblem by the Society of Jesus (or Jesuits) for whom it translates to Iesus Humilis Societas - Humble Society of Jesus. Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Pope, incorporates I.H.S. into his coat of arms.
Molly’s misreadings don’t seem to originate with James Joyce or in the text of Ulysses. Citations of I.H.S. as “I have sinned” can be found in other records from the 19th century. There is some anecdotal evidence that I.N.R.I. interpreted as “irons nails ran in” may be native to Ireland, specifically Limerick.
Religion is often viewed by the faithful as a teacher of morals. Despite his skepticism toward organized religion, Bloom exhibits a great deal of compassion throughout June the sixteenth. Though he has a shallow view of religion (at least Catholicism and Buddhism, as we’ve seen), he still manages to embody the core message of compassion found at the heart of all major religions. Even a brief tossed off memory of a Hadith shows Bloom’s admiration for the Prophet Muhammad’s kindness toward a cat. Bloom instinctively knows the importance of loving thy neighbor without it arising as an expression of religious conviction. There are plenty of people who do charity out of religious obligation but act less charitably in their daily lives. Bloom performs acts of kindness, whether he is helping a blind stripling cross the street or picking up a friend’s son from the dust in Nighttown, simply because it is right, a remarkably Christlike instinct on the part of a Freemason and a nominal Jew.
Catholicism is, of course, a major theme throughout Ulysses, but up until now we’ve only seen it portrayed through Stephen’s scholastic point of view. While Stephen has an objectively deeper knowledge about Catholicism, his relationship to faith is philosophical and scholarly, jesuitically obsessive of concepts like consubstantiality or hypostasis. Bloom, on the other, knows little about doctrine or theology, but we can see through his observations that, while his views on religion are cynical, he sees people connecting with religion emotionally and recognizes its ability to unite a community. Both are incomplete views of Catholicism, however. Bloom is able to see the intersection of love and suffering in his correspondence with Martha, but doesn’t recognize the same paradox embedded in Christ’s sacrifice, an insight that might allow him to find a deeper meaning behind the odd rituals he’s witnessing.
Further Reading:
Bowen, Z. (1974). Musical allusions in the works of James Joyce: Early poetry through Ulysses. Albany: State University of New York Press. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/y9erlwtw
Burgess, A. (1968). ReJoyce. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Ellmann, R. (1972). Ulysses on the Liffey. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.65767/page/n39
Finn, E., and Simpson, J. If I have sinned, I have suffered. James Joyce Online Notes. Retrieved from http://www.jjon.org/joyce-s-allusions/sinned#_ftn1
Gifford, D., & Seidman, R. J. (1988). Ulysses annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses. Berkeley: University of California Press. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/vy6j4tk
Gilbert, S. (1955). James Joyce’s Ulysses: a study. New York: Vintage Books.
Herring, P. (1974). Lotuseaters. In C. Hart & D. Hayman (eds.), James Joyce’s Ulysses: Critical essays (71-90). Berkeley: University of California Press. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/yy2gpfhs
Kent, K. S. (2013). "James Joyce's 'Ulysses' and Bloom's Utopian Vision of Ireland." Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 5(10). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=772
O'Shea, M. (1984). Catholic Liturgy in Joyce's "Ulysses". James Joyce Quarterly, 21(2), 123-135. Retrieved December 17, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25476572
Osteen, M. (1995). The economy of Ulysses: making both ends meet. New York: Syracuse University Press. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/yy6hq4x3
Restuccia, F. (1984). Transubstantiating "Ulysses". James Joyce Quarterly, 21(4), 329-340. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25476613
Walsh, R. (1969). In the Name of the Father and of the Son... Joyce's Use of the Mass in Ulysses. James Joyce Quarterly, 6(4), 321-347. Retrieved December 17, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486788
Rosary and Scapular image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosary%26scapular.jpg
Ciborium image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ciborie1.jpg