Onions are an ingredient I cook with often. Whether sloppy joe’s, soups, sauces, fajitas, kabobs, salads or dressings, they are kept in supply in our house: sweet, red, yellow, shallots, scallions. I use them all. A little known fact about onions is that their smell, bitter taste and propensity to make you cry comes from when you break the bonds of their make-up by cutting into the onion. The broken bonds release an enzyme which produces a range of compounds as a defense mechanism. This idea that the bitterness of an onion does not exist until the onion is sliced through has really stuck with me as does an onion’s transformation once it is cooked. Much like life, things that cut us to the core can give rise to a certain bitterness, as a defense mechanism, but with fire and/or oil, maybe even some seasoning and other ingredients, the Holy Spirit can transform that bitterness into something delightful.
Almost immediately when you slice into an onion, its pungent odor rises into the air. The tears start almost instantly if your knife is dull, making the cut less clean and accelerating the bond breakage. And so our life begins, almost instantly after we are born, our umbilical cord is cut, breaking us from that physical attachment to our mother. What happens? Most babies cry. If you aren’t crying, they smack you on the bottom so that you do. And so begins the first assaults on our senses.
As children, the cuts, bumps and bruises come with tumbles from running too fast, learning to ride a bike or roller skate, and other courageous adventures. With each cut, we learn a little more caution or we simply persevere through. I know when I am mincing an onion with tears streaming down, I get to a point where I don’t even wipe the tears away. I just keep pressing through. I’m not going to let this involuntary physical reaction stop me from finishing what I started. Sometimes through tears, our children accomplish what they set out to learn.
As life goes on, unfortunately, cuts don’t stay as basic as a skinned knee, they change into insults thrown carelessly from peers or harsh judgements from adults. For some, the bitterness becomes evident in doling out embittered behavior in response; in other instances, it gives way to tears and a hidden embittered heart. Either way, bonds are breaking up and giving rise to something unpleasant.
Enter heat and oil! Every great dish begins with heating up some oil to sauté an onion, sometimes alone, sometimes with meat, sometimes with garlic. When I think of my homemade tomato sauce, this is how I begin. Heat, oil, and chopped onion. Before the onion goes into the pan, it’s solid in color, it’s crunchy and of course, stinky! I let the oil heat up in the pan, before I put the onion in. Depending on the level of the heat, the onion will slowly or quickly become translucent, pliable, and give off a lovely rich odor, much more pleasant to the nose.
In our Catholic faith, fire and oil are signs of the Holy Spirit. The fire of the Holy Spirit combined with the seal of holy oil at Baptism, Confirmation and Anointing of the Sick create a perfect environment for our hearts and souls to soften, release the hopelessness of sin, and become a perfect base on which to build our faith. The sweetness released in our lives thanks to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit adds a richness and a flavor that we can’t get anywhere else.
Let’s be honest. Sometimes we are in a rush…Sometimes, you overheat the oil and cook the onion too fast, this can also give rise to a different type of bitterness. Ends that are charred up, maybe even fully burnt. Can you salvage these onions for your base? Sometimes you can…sometimes you might need to mix in some additional onion to offset the damaged ones. Regardless, your problem was too much heat, too soon. Another good lesson…sometimes, we get excited when we see someone in our lives becoming more engaged in the faith and so we begin to really turn up the heat if you will. We start sending them all kinds of information, recommending all sorts of things they are doing. They are getting overwhelmed, and they might even start to feel burned out by the onslaught of information, feeling like maybe this isn’t for me. We need to be careful that we are letting everyone warm up to just the right amount of information. We must remember that we have time and God will do the work necessary to soften and enrich this person’s heart and soul without us needing to force it. Be gentle with your heat and oil as it relates those new to the faith or newly ignited. Ask the Lord to help you give them what they need so they have a great base to build upon, one that won’t get over-fried and tossed out.
Sometimes oil is not a factor. Onions in their raw form pair well with sweetness and seasonings in the form of Greek salads, kabobs, and more! Sometimes, God asks us to crunch on the bitterness of life a little longer. Like a Greek salad, God also balances the bitterness of life with saltiness (olives), sweetness (bell peppers), and blandness (cucumbers). He helps all the flavors of life work together to make something beautiful.
Who knew I could ponder so much about faith while chopping onions? Where is God calling you to use the power of the sacraments to soften your heart? Where is He inviting you to help someone else gradually heat things up with their faith? Where is He giving you the salty, sweet, and bland to create something unexpected? Let Him use your bitterness for something beautiful!
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