The Last Supper and the Lord’s Supper

When eaten, food becomes us. Once external and on a table or in a garden or on a grocery shelf, food is internalized as nutrients. At the Last Supper Jesus gave to his apostles his very self, and this continues in the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharistic Sacrifice. How profoundly self-giving is the life-sharing that Jesus intends. And because this happens for every person receiving the Eucharist, the Body of Christ is intimately joined to the body of each person. Beatrice Bruteau writes in The Easter Mysteries: “And since his Body is the most vital and the most vitalizing—the most life-giving—element in any of us, all of us together constitute a kind of extension of his Body.  And that enlarged Body acts as any living body does: it grows and unifies and develops; it supports diversity within itself by being secure in its unity. . . .” As His Body, we too must become food for others to eat. We need to feed one another through self-giving.