Recharging certain items is a daily necessary routine for many of us. Smart phones, laptops, hearing aids, and electric toothbrushes, for example, would not function for long if we did not recharge them regularly. The same could be said for plants; if we don’t water them often enough, they would die. Likewise, we need to eat if we are to survive. Our health and well-being depends on eating well. Otherwise, we could either starve or suffer from malnutrition.
What can be said for our physical well-being can also be said for our spiritual well-being. That may very well be why Jesus did what he did at the last supper, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” To the outsider what Jesus said may seem like very strange language, perhaps even a bit cannibalistic.
Jesus foresaw the need to continually feed us with his body and blood to sustain our spiritual well-being. From the first Easter onward, our Catholic worship has been centered on the Eucharist. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the priest would offer bread and wine, which would be consecrated into the body and blood of our savior. They would become his real presence, not a symbol of his presence.
Many Christian denominations may mimic the Last Supper in their worship but they stop short of believing in the real presence of Jesus since it cannot be rationally explained. How can something that taste and look like bread and wine become something other than what it appears to be?
When the opportunity arises for me to explain to others what happens before our very eyes, I make the point that out of nothing, God created all that we see. That itself cannot be explained either, so who are we to limit what God can do?
Having studied human anatomy and be left in awe at how well the body works together, I cannot imagine how creation could have taken place without God, who clearly took time to design how all life would work together. And if God is the creator of all that we see, than I accept the notion that God also has the power to transform our gifts of bread and wine into his very being to sustain our spiritual beings.
I have read that the number one reason why fallen away Catholics come back to the faith is their hunger for the Eucharist. They want to again be fed by Christ. I suspect that many once active Catholics leave the faith because they never really cultivated a deep appreciation of the Eucharist. For them, receiving Holy Communion had become an empty ritual but did they allow themselves to be spiritually fed?
Receiving Communion is not meant to be just a spiritual thing between Jesus and the communicant. To be fed by the Eucharist, one must also carry out the mission that is entrusted to us at the end of Mass, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” In other words, receiving communion is a reminder that we belong to a community of believers. Just as Jesus demonstrated a willingness to serve the disciples at the Last Supper by washing their feet, a task normally done by slaves, we are expected to serve others when we leave here. The grace of the Eucharist is intended to give us the energy to imitate Christ. By depicting the corporal works of mercy, our stained glass windows provideexamples of how we can serve others. St. Theresa of Avila wrote centuries ago, “Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” Simply put, real reverence for the Eucharist includes how we treat one another preceding and following Mass.