Reflections on the Eucharist in Culture Babette’s Feast

KYLE LANG ’26, DIOCESE OF LA CROSSE

Faced with the task of writing for an American audience, Danish author Karen Blixen followed the advice of a friend. “Just write about food,” her friend said. “Americans are obsessed with food.” The result was Babette’s Feast, a short story on which Gabriel Axel’s well-known 1987 film is faithfully based. It offers insight into the notion that sensible things spur us to things divine.

In the story, two aging Norwegian sisters take in Babette—a French Catholic refugee, to work as their housekeeper. The Lutheran sisters are accustomed to a life of puritanical simplicity, while Babette, a former professional chef, acutely understands that beauty leads us to God.

After twelve years of loyal service, Babette wins the lottery, and instead of using the money to return to France, she freely and self-sacrificially spends it all to prepare a feast. As the evening progresses, the elegant food and wine bring the guests to forgive debts, recount miracles, and strengthen bonds. “Most often people in Berlevaag during the course of a good meal would come to feel a little heavy,” writes Blixen. “Tonight it was not so. The convives grew lighter in weight and lighter in heart the more they ate and drank.” That night, “time itself had merged into eternity.”

Sensible things spur us to things divine, understands Babette along with the Catholic Church. A meal sustains the body and reminds us that God sustains our whole being. A great meal points to our “true food” and “true drink,” Christ’s Body and Blood by which we are strengthened in the good, restored to unity with God and his Church, and given delight in Our Lord’s embrace. Thus, when we feast on the Eucharist, freely and self-sacrificially given for our benefit, heaven touches earth. Time meets eternity.

We fast, yes, but we also feast. So let’s eat! Let’s eat well with friends and family; let’s eat joyfully, forgiving debts and strengthening bonds. Let’s eat the true food and true drink of the Eucharist. And let us come hungry to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, where our deepest desires will be sated for all eternity.