This is from a wonderful essay on *The Eucharist in the Church and the World *by Francis Cardinal George:
"In the Eucharist, Christ gives himself as food for our journey, as our daily bread, as a banquet, which brings us together as pilgrims. Christ never comes to us alone. Christ comes to us with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Mary, the mother of Christ and our mother in him, accompanies her Son. All the angels and the saints, who have gone before us in faith,
together with the souls in purgatory, join in the great communion.
Moreover, all those who are the visible body of Christ throughout the world today are united in the divine gift of love. We never go to Jesus alone. In the Eucharist, we are most clearly members of a body, living stones of a temple, a gathered people of God. Too good to be true? Yes, except for those whose hearts have been turned inside out by the unity given to those who know they are loved by God and who have come to sense their unity with the multitude, who are their brothers and sisters in the Risen Lord."
the rest here:
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/01/18/the-eucharist-in-the-church-and-the-world/
The Eucharist is the secret of the Church’s heart and is her comfort in every generation. Beyond some very rudimentary instruction on the liturgy in RCIA, I had virtually no knowledge of the mass or the Eucharist. That is why I was fascinated with Francis Cardinal George’s writings here. Having read this, I now feel like a fully informed Catholic for the first time in my Christian life.
dj
