The Eucharist is life. That is what Jesus means when he says, “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” The bread he gives us, his flesh, is life. It is not a metaphor. It is not a mere symbol. It really is life, the life of heaven, and Jesus freely gives it to us. He shares with us an eternal and perfect reality simply because he loves us. He does not give us the gift of his flesh and his life because we deserve it. He does not give it to us because we are amazing and inspiring examples for the world. He gives it to us despite our many sins and failures. He gives us life to prove that he loves us. And the one and only thing he asks in return, is that we do the same, that we take the gift of life that we have received, and we give it to others.
The Eucharist is not like other gifts we receive in this world. If we give away our house, or car, or money, then they are gone. They are singular objects which can be possessed by only one person at a time. But the Eucharist is life. It is limitless life. When it is given to us, God does not become less; we become more. God’s life is not diminished when it is given, it is multiplied. And he empowers us, he calls us, to do the same.
After we have feasted at this altar Christ sends us out into the world to multiply the Eucharist. When we step forward to receive the body of Christ we are being commissioned. While we each receive the one bread, the one body, the gift we are given is still unique. The Eucharist is not a singular and generic grace given to all which makes us vaguely more Christ like. God so loves us and so thoroughly know us, that he gives us the grace we, individually, need. And that grace, the particular grace we require to progress in the Christian life and know God’s love, becomes our mission. If God shows us mercy, then we cannot leave here and kind of sort of be nice to someone. We must leave here and find someone else who needs mercy. If he gives us comfort, then we must find the sorrowful. If we leave here saying, I don’t remember a word of the readings, and the homily didn’t make any sense, but at least the music was beautiful. Even then, the Eucharist has achieved its goal, and we have been commissioned to carry God’s beauty into the world.
All of which is to say, that to consume the Eucharist with an open heart and willing spirit, is to become the Eucharist. It is to be remade and perfected. The Eucharist is life, it is God’s life, and that life desires to multiply itself. It desires to transform all things into itself and fill the universe, to become a new creation perfectly united in the life and love of God.