In the Eucharist, Jesus makes present his life and mission for us to participate and
become Christs to the world. Bread and wine of the Last Supper, Jesus says is ‘my
body and my blood’. The bread of the passover was bread of affliction for the
Israelites, the slavery they suffered in Egypt; the wine of passover was symbol of blood
of the lamb sacrificed, symbol of new life, liberation, passing over to the Promised
Land. Christ assumed human nature to become our redemption and fellow traveler. In
the Eucharist Christ assumes the fruits of human labor, bread and wine, to become our
bread of life! Body and blood of Christ, Christ himself, is our liberation and he invites
and gathers all humanity into one, healed of all divisions, that Christ be all in all!
Understanding the meaning of the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper is important for
us to live the spirituality of the Eucharist. Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it and said
take this, eat it, this is my body and the same way the cup of wine, this is my blood,
take this and drink from it. Taking bread into his hands [didn’t say take this food from
the table] was a personal act that embraces the universe, as if Jesus holding the whole
creation that is to be redeemed; the act of breaking the bread, giving and sharing, was
also symbolic of his broken body on the cross for the life of the world. Jesus identifies
himself with bread and wine, saying, ‘this is I am’, you take it. Taking with the hand is
active participation, being receptive to Christ’s desire to have union with us. Taking
communion is symbol of the heart’s desire, that of the whole person to love Christ with
the whole heart and strength. The word communion means a sharing that meant to
have a union with what we share. Our communion in the body and blood of Christ is
our sharing in the life and love of Christ that builds our relationship of friendship with
Christ; it makes us channels of healing and blessing for the world.
Eucharist is a sacrament of relations; our communion is also union of love with the
church community. It is a mission to serve and that is to make present the kingdom of
God in the world, shape lives and the world according to the gospel of Christ. In the
Bible food is gift of God; food nourishes and continuously changes us. Our
participation in the Eucharist is to change us into Christ like love and carry on his
mission of healing and fellowship with ‘sinners and tax-collectors’; that is to gather all
humanity to fellowship, the sinners, the outcasts, all who need freedom from sins of the
world. Our communion with Christ has to move us to nourish each other’s lives, love
one another in concrete actions because bread and wine is symbol of interrelatedness
of all creation, a microcosm. Early Christian writing ‘Didache’ says this about the
Eucharist: ‘as this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and was gathered
together and became one, so let thy church be gathered together from the ends of the
earth into thy kingdom’. Eucharist is food of the kingdom of Christ; those who have
communion with Christ must let the waves of love emerge from them for their own
healing and healing of the world.
Poet William Blake: ‘Unless the eye catch fire, the God will not be seen. Unless the ear
catch fire the God will not be heard. Unless the tongue catch fire the God will not be
named. Unless the heart catch fire, the God will not be loved. Unless the mind catch
fire, the God will not be known’. Let our communion in the body and blood of Christ set
us on fire of love that through us the world may catch fire, fire of Christ’s love!