Life & Wisdom Quote by John Ralston Saul

The Big Mac lands here not as a sandwich but as a ritual object: a mass-produced token that promises belonging through purchase. Calling it "the communion wafer of consumption" is a deliberately heretical mash-up, splicing the sacred choreography of Christian liturgy onto the fluorescent routines of fast food. Saul is aiming at a particular kind of modern faith: the way brands flatten difference, soothe anxiety, and offer identity in exchange for obedience to the market.

The line works because it refuses to moralize in the obvious way. He doesn’t call the Big Mac "junk" or "greedy"; he elevates it, almost respectfully, into the realm of sacrament. That elevation is the knife. Communion is about incorporation, literally taking something into the body as a sign of collective meaning. The Big Mac, Saul implies, does the same trick at scale: a standardized taste that travels globally, turning local appetites into a single, repeatable experience. You don’t just eat it; you participate in a system that reassures you the world is legible and ordered.

Context matters: Saul’s broader work often critiques managerial, corporate rationality and the thinning of civic life into consumer choice. In that light, the Big Mac becomes shorthand for how institutions once built on shared narratives (religion, citizenship, community) get quietly replaced by transactional substitutes. The genius of the metaphor is its discomfort: it forces you to notice how easily the language of transcendence migrates to the drive-thru, and how willingly we line up for the new altar.