For the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ…
Do this in remembrance of me.
1 Corinthians 11:24
The Bible tells us that our troubles began with a bad meal. In the beginning, God created a world that we were invited to receive as the gift that it was. Instead, we seized and grasped hold of the gift in an act of self-assertion. To that, we owe the enmity, the alienation, the dysfunction that has marked the course of human history.
At the Last Supper, Jesus sets out to undo the bad meal of Eden. He desires to restore that gracious meal during which he shares his life. We receive that life as a gift before we are sent out to share it with others. This is the very logic of the Christian life—that open-handed logic by which we open ourselves to receive what we could not possibly give to ourselves, and then go out to share the gift of God’s life and love in our interactions with others.
This is a guest post by Fr. Dennis Gallagher, A.A., who belongs to Augustinians of the Assumption. Read about his ministry and mission at Assumption University at LivingFaith.com. You can also discover more about the Assumptionists, the religious order that sponsors Bayard and the publication of Living Faith, here.
