In Eucharist We Meet A God Who Wants To Touch Us

Although Christ is present in in Scripture, in prayer, symbols, and rituals,  Ron Rolheiser tells us Christ is most present in the Eucharist -- a presence we can touch and feel, a presence that lives within our body.   In an article in the Catholic Herald, Rolheiser reminds us that "in the Eucharist, Christ touches us, intimately, physically, sensually, carnally.  Euchharist is physical, not spiritual:  its embrace real, as physical as the incarnation itself. "

Similarly in a reflection on the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St. Louis University, Rolheiser tells a beautiful story about Brenda Person who wrote a book of essays entitled, Nature and Other Mothers.  Her first essay in the book is entitled "In Praise of Skin", she tells about a skin condition which was not being cured by multiple visits to numerous physicians.  One day her grandmother saw the rash and told her immediately that her "Skin needs to be touched" and began to give her regular skin massages and, of course, Brenda was healed of her condition."  Rolheiser says "God knows that better than anyone.  It's why Jesus gave us the Eucharist.  In the Eucharist skin gets touched.  The Eucharist isn't abstract, a theological instruction, a creed  a moral precept, a philosophy, or even just an intimate word.  It's bodily, an embrace, a kiss, something shockingly physical, the real presence in a deeper way than even the old metaphysics imagined. ..Skin heals when touched--that's why there's a Eucharist. " 

Is that perhaps why it is so much more fulfilling for us to receive Eucharist in our hand rather than our tongue.  The sensual experience of holding the body and blood of our God makes God's presence real in our lives.  It calls us to a tenderness that knows deep within our God desires to be one with us in every way possible.

In a book published after Nouwen's death entitled  Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (2010, Kindle Locations 1692-1697,  HarperCollins. Kindle Edition) Nouwen is even more forceful about God's desire to be fully present to us in Eucharist.    Henri Nouwen  says "Jesus never said:  "Munch and sip" the bread and wine.  He said, "Eat me up, drink me empty, take it all in.  Don't hold back.  I want you to become part of me.  I don't want to be separate anymore.  I want to live within you, so that when you eat and drink, I disappear because I am within you.  I want to make my home in you, and invite you to make your home in me."

Reading John 6:53-68 in the Message Translation (Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson) the phrasing is rather explicit in Jesus' response to those who questioned the concept of "Eating his Body and His Blood.  :

But Jesus didn’t give an inch. “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always.”

How sad that we often grew up so focused on doctrine that we failed to let our hearts and our bodies know deeply the GOOD NEWS of Eucharist.  May your heart be nourished by this beautiful sensual gift of God and May you remember we have a God who wants to be present to us "Skin-to-Skin".  God certainly touches us through one another but no time more closely than in this beautiful gift of Eucharist.