Emily Dickinson’s Unexpected Eucharistic Poem
1651
A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength —
A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He —
“Made Flesh and dwelt among us”
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology.
Daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson
At the end of my American Literature survey courses, I give my students the option to memorize either a Walt Whitman or an Emily Dickinson poem. Every semester, at least one student selects Dickinson’s poem 1651, a work that moves from imagery of the Eucharist to the Incarnation. Those first lines always stand out. A Word made Flesh is seldom / And tremblingly partook. “Professor, did you notice this? My students ask, “Did you see that this is an Emily Dickinson poem about the Incarnate Word?” In the middle of the second stanza, Dickinson confirms this by quoting directly from John: “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us.” To many of my students, as indeed to myself, this poem reads like a spoken Eucharistic prayer.
Dickinson’s poetry captures the beauty of the human spirit as she receives and understands God, even and perhaps especially when the emotions about that experience are mixed. This year, after witnessing my son take his First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church, Dickinson’s poem began to resonate with me in a new way. This is one of several poems that indicates Dickinson’s reverence for the Eucharistic service familiar from her Calvinist upbringing. Her church likely had a communion celebration, and if the celebration was anything like the one my son and I have known at Mass, the strictures around participating in such a service would have stirred fear and trembling in the young poet—fear that she was not in good standing with God. Because Dickinson’s Congregationalist community required a public confession of faith before one was allowed to receive the Eucharist, it is likely that the famously reclusive poet never actually partook of communion. Awe for the Lord’s Supper is not lost on her, however. Its personal significance and its significance in her community can be found throughout her poetry.
Both Roman Catholics and Calvinists emphasize the importance of self-examination prior to receiving communion, indicated by the “trembling” Dickinson references in the second line of this poem. Roman Catholics ask themselves if they are in a state of grace. Likewise, Dickinson’s church would have required her to wonder if her soul were prepared for the holy observance of bread and wine. As far as we know, Dickinson never felt she fully was.
Fear is one connotation of the Eucharist for Dickinson. But so is joy—so is “ecstasy.” My son could relate to these complex emotions. His seven-year old body trembled in both fear and anticipation as he walked up to take the Eucharist for the time. In early spiritual writing, “trembling” is also a response to being overwhelmed by God’s power. When my son took communion for the first time he was, participating to his “specific strength,” at least as far as he could understand it. He “trembled” in both respects, too. He was anxious, but he was also overcome by the Lord’s presence.
As a convert to the Catholic faith, I recall that exact feeling—that mix of fear and excited anticipation. I also remember feeling that I perhaps was still not a real Catholic, even after receiving the sacrament. Perhaps I was still not worthy. Perhaps I would go to Hell for presuming to be what I was not, that I was only “stealthily” partaking of this “debated” “food.” Who was I to come to this table?
After his First Communion, my son asked: Did I bow correctly? Did I say “Amen” loud enough? Did I hold my hands correctly? The question he was really asking was much simpler: “Am I worthy?” It’s a question I asked myself not only the first time I took communion, but almost every time thereafter.
Dickinson wonders much of the same in the first stanza of her poem. Haven’t we all been overcome by the “Word made Flesh”? Hasn’t the Eucharist affected each of us in a personal way, to our individual “strength”? And haven’t we all felt a little shame afterward, feeling perhaps that we “mistook it,” even that we should not have gone up to the altar in the first place? And, that when we did accept the Eucharist, we did it wrong?
In the second stanza, the poem takes a thematic turn: Christ made flesh can redeem us from the fear that we have of the Eucharist, it suggests. Dickinson again likens Christ with humanity first and foremost—flesh in the first stanza, breath in the second. “A Word that breathes distinctly has not the power to die.” If we remember that Christ is human—God made flesh—and that we are like Christ—flesh and breath—then we can be redeemed of our fear of partaking in the Eucharist.
One of my favorite anecdotes about Dickinson, one that I often tell my students, concerns her attendance at Mount Holyoke. The seminary’s founder, Mary Lyon, placed students into multiple tiers based on what she believed was their potential for salvation: those who had hope of receiving God’s Grace, those whom she “indulged” a hope for it, and those she felt had no hope at all. Dickinson fell into that last category. Knowing this, Dickinson felt unmoved to change her course; at school, she never publicly professed her sins and refused to attend religious gatherings. If Lyon was right that there was no hope for her, then, the poet may have wondered, why try? Dickinson left Mount Holyoke after the first year.
Unlike Mary Lyon, Christ, in the Catholic understanding, does not condemn some to salvation and others to damnation a priori. He comes in the Eucharist to save all humanity—so long as they choose to be saved. In her poem, Dickinson reminds readers that the “Spirit” is “Cohesive,” meaning that the Spirit unifies humanity by being open to everyone, even those who tremble—in joy, in ecstasy, in fear—before the Eucharist. Jesus sacrificed everything for the potential inherent in all humanity—not simply those who feel they are perfect. Certainly, Jesus would not perceive Dickinson as someone without hope, as Mary Lyon did. No, Dickinson, too, has the promise of eternal life. All humans do. That is how the Holy Spirit unifies humanity.
The second stanza shifts in an intriguing way with an “if” clause that matters substantially: “It may expire if He — / ‘Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us’ / Could Condescension Be.” Christ cannot be “Condescension,” at least not in the way Mary Lyon explained “Condescension” to Dickinson at Mount Holyoke. Jesus can and does “condescend” to humanity, since he puts aside his divine superiority to become human. In other words, Jesus condescends via the Eucharist for the sake of cohesion of his Body (the Church) through love.
Dickinson’s poem evinces the same worry that my son experienced the first time he received the Eucharist just a few months ago. When Jesus “condescend[s]” to “dwel[l] among us,” though, his Incarnation, his embodied love, responds to these worries with compassion. Of course, one wonders today whether this answer is enough for children like my son to stay affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church as adults. Research shows that almost half of Catholics leave the Church before the age of 18. Today, a third of American adults under the age of 30 are “nones,” those who have no affiliation with any organized religion.
Dickinson herself could be seen as a precursor to the modern “nones,” no doubt scarred by her experiences at Mount Holyoke when she was young. Dickinson, who became known as “the New England Nun” as early as 1899 and who clearly loved and trembled in front of the “Word made Flesh” and knew sacred scripture front and back, never felt accepted in any church. Thus, she found herself alone with God, in her garden, religiously unaffiliated and sacrificially loved. It is meaningful, and perhaps a little sad, that she likely never partook in the Eucharist that she writes about so lovingly.
Dickinson ends this poem with the lines, “Like this Consent of Language / This Loved Philology.” Here, the language of consent matters, as it does in the Catholic sacrament of marriage. Dickinson says her poem is loved, that it is created with consent by her and by God—the very God in whose presence she has trembled. She desires to “consume” and to be in “ecstasy” with God. This, then, can be interpreted as a sacramental love poem, a poem reiterating her consent with the Word. Dickinson wants God to give “specific strength”—knowledge and understanding—meant only for her.
Language—words—spoken in reverence transmit meanings that both humans and God have consented to share. “Philology,” moreover, has its root in philos (love) and logos (the divine Word from John, or Jesus) and has come to mean the way God communicates creatively with humans. A “loved Philology” is Dickinson’s situational and consensual communion with Jesus. Dickinson’s poetry is a means to communicate that with him. It captures the joy of the Eucharist, of language, of communion with God, and of all the human foibles and worries that make us wonder: are we good enough to try for any of it, for this grand love, for this holy sacrament, especially when we know other humans will tell us we are not? Should we try to connect with God? With each other? With a particular church?
At Mass, I still sometimes wonder if I will receive the Eucharist wrongly. What if I drop it this time? What if others believe at Mass think I’m not good enough to be here? What if I don’t talk to God the right way? What if I’m praying incorrectly? What if I’m not in a state of grace, a state worthy of love?
In this poem, Emily Dickinson reassures her Christian readers that “A Word that Breathes Distinctly / Has Not the Power to Die” and that in the end, even when there’s risk—especially risk of judgment from other people and from ourselves—“This Loved Philology,” this attempt at speaking to the Word through our words, however fumbling they may be, is worth it, for all hope is in Christ, in the Eucharist, and in the “Word made Flesh.”
LuElla D'Amico is an Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of the Incarnate Word.