A Perfect Union
“Christ with the Host” by Paolo San Leocadio, late 1400s
I could never receive Jesus in the Eucharistic enough. Only this sacred vehicle—this Most Holy and Blessed Sacrament—eliminates the gap between Jesus and my soul. Perhaps I could survive on the silver supplements of prayer, spiritual communion, and grace—but for how long? My soul craves more. l need that perfect, unifying and edible mystery that is the Eucharist.
When I receive .Jesus in the Eucharist, I beg of Him a perfect union: that He might increase, and I decrease. He does not refuse me. Jesus—my Living Host—is willingly broken down, dissolved within me. He lets His every living particle be absorbed and reassimilated as the very tissues of my body. His living flesh reconstitutes my living flesh. His blood is transfused into mine. I think I have consumed Him—but it is He who consumes me.
With each prayerful, Eucharistic communion, Jesus continues to layer Himself within my body and soul. In time, He grafts His heart onto mine, transposing it cell-by-cell. Where He once was barely visible, transparent and lacking, He takes firm shape. His hands, arms, feet, heart, mouth, mind, back, eyes—begin to replace my own. He melts His own divinity into my soul, to tip it a little more toward heaven.
Luke 22:16
Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”
John 6:47-58
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”
