I remember a homily by our Holy Father from Holy Thursday 2009 that I thought treated this subject very beautifully and quite directly. Here is an excerpt that shows how it touches on the OPs question, but I’d encourage the OP to read the whole thing:
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090409_coena-domini_en.html
“Now, however, a further question arises. In the Upper Room, Christ gives his Body and Blood to the disciples, that is, he gives himself in the totality of his person. But can he do so? He is still physically present in their midst, he is standing in front of them! The answer is: at that hour, Jesus fulfils what he had previously proclaimed in the Good Shepherd discourse: “No one takes my life from me: I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again …” (Jn 10:18). No one can take his life from him: he lays it down by his own free decision. At that hour, he anticipates the crucifixion and resurrection. What is later to be fulfilled, as it were, physically in him, he already accomplishes in anticipation, in the freedom of his love. He gives his life and he takes it again in the resurrection, so as to be able to share it for ever.”
Another homily (
catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=68) he also said:
*In the Corpus Domini procession, we walk with the Risen One on his journey to meet the entire world, as we said. By doing precisely this, we too answer his mandate: “Take, eat… Drink of it, all of you” (Mt 26: 26ff.).
It is not possible to “eat” the Risen One, present under the sign of bread, as if it were a simple piece of bread. To eat this Bread is to communicate, to enter into communion with the person of the living Lord. This communion, this act of “eating”, is truly an encounter between two persons, it is allowing our lives to be penetrated by the life of the One who is the Lord, of the One who is my Creator and Redeemer.
The purpose of this communion, of this partaking, is the assimilation of my life with his, my transformation and conformation into he who is living Love. Therefore, this communion implies adoration, it implies the will to follow Christ, to follow the One who goes ahead of us. Adoration and procession thereby make up a single gesture of communion; they answer his mandate: “Take and eat”. *
In other words, in sharing in the breaking of the bread with us, the Lord wasn’t “eating himself”; rather, he was assimilating his life and ours. It was an act of becoming truly one in life. When we adore the Eucharist, we aren’t adoring the Lord as divine food, like ambrosia from Olympus or something, but as our God, our all, our life.
