I am looking at you, Lord. You have said so many loving words. Your heart has spoken so clearly. Now you want to show me even more clearly how much you love me. You stand up and invite me to the table. As we are eating, you take bread, say the blessing, break the bread, and give it to me. “Take and eat,” you say, “this is my body given for you.” Then you take a cup, and, after giving thanks, you hand it to me, saying, “This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant poured out for you.” Knowing that your hour has come to pass from this world to your Father and having loved me, you now love me to the end. You give me everything that you have and are. You pour out for me your very self. All the love that you carry for me in your heart now becomes manifest. You wash my feet and then give me your own body and blood as food and drink.
O Lord, how can I ever go anywhere else but to you to find the love I so desire!
Every time you celebrate the Eucharist and receive the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, his suffering and his death become a suffering and death for you. Passion becomes compassion, for you. You are incorporated into Jesus. You become part of his “body” and in that most compassionate way are freed from your deepest solitude. Through the Eucharist you come to belong to Jesus in the most intimate way, to him who suffered for you, died for you and rose again so that you may suffer, die, and rise again with him.
--Henri Nouwen
Image source: Marian Graber, Last Supper (1943), https://www.flickr.com/photos/associatedartists/6970162354
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