United in Love

The Bread of Life

A father surprises his daughter on her birthday.

During his time away on deployment, she has been able to look at his photo and read his letters. She has been able to speak with him on the phone, or even see him on a video call. All of this is helpful, but nothing can top her dad being back home, right there with her. She can run over to him and be wrapped in his arms.

When we love someone, we want to be physically with them.

Photos, letters, phone calls, and even video chats can only go so far. As human beings, we crave to be physically united with our loved ones. This is because God created us as embodied spirits: an immaterial spirit united with a material body. Since we are “body-persons,” our bodies matter in our expressions of love and affection. When the father and daughter hug, for example, they are together not just spiritually but their entire selves, both body and soul.

As Christians, we yearn to be close to Jesus.

Like the deployed father in our example, Jesus can seem to be far away from us. We can grow closer to him in various ways, such as looking at a depiction of him in sacred art, reading his words in the Gospels, and speaking with him each day in our prayer time. While such opportunities are important and beautiful, wouldn’t it be amazing if Jesus were to actually become present in our midst, and we could spend time with him? And even more, what if we were able to become united with him in love, in both body and soul?

Jesus loves you and wants to be united with you!

Because Jesus loves each of us so much, he did plan for there to be a way that he could continue to be physically present with us, and even to become physically one with us. He promised that he would give himself to us as the Bread of Life. Ever since the earliest days of Christianity, one finds Christians proclaiming that when they come together for worship, they receive Jesus himself in what appears to be ordinary bread and wine. This gift is called the Eucharist.

As explore this mystery, we discover its beauty.

In this message series, we will seek to answer some important questions about the Eucharist. What did Jesus teach in the Gospels? How did God prepare for this gift in the Old Testament? What can we find in the writings of Paul and the apostles? How did Christians worship in the early centuries, and what did they believe about Communion? How does this gift make a difference in our lives today as Christians? The more one learns about the Eucharist, the more beautiful it becomes.

If Jesus is offering such an amazing gift, wouldn’t you want to experience it?

In every Catholic church throughout the world, Christians continue to experience this wonderful treasure in our worship, as Jesus commanded. Jesus wants to unite himself with you, not only in spirit, but as you are, both body and soul. He wants to be truly one with you, much more than the closest embrace. He wants to feed you with the true Bread of Life.

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