Take, this is my body. In the Gospels, Jesus reaches out to me through his radically human actions and unveils God’s face through gestures common to all.
He starts with a powerful verb: Take! Sharp and precise like a health specialist who noticed my ostensibly malnourished soul. Jesus does not ask the apostles to stop and contemplate God’s nourishing gestures and then leave; he asks much more: “I want to be taken by your hands as a gift, in your mouth as heaven’s bread, in your innermost being as blood, breath, and spark of divine life in your life.”
The shock of the Eucharist is not only what happens to the bread but what will happen to the disciple who feels God’s food reaching the soul: God wants the warm flow of his life to flow through our veins, for his courage to take root in our hearts. He doesn’t take but only nourishes us so we can set out to live human existence as he lived it.
During my suffering, I often questioned where God was. It was at the Holy Communion line that I found my answer. I realized that God had been reaching out to me all along, not to demand from me but to provide the sustenance of heaven for my earthly longing.
God in me feels like a tranquil freshwater spring but moves like a burst of spiritual life, giving my heart a much-needed jolt, revealing my renewed self in Christ.