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Jesus' Body and Blood


passerby

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The whole point of salvation is to be with Jesus. It is to be united to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the bosom of the Father. We hope, in heaven, we will see God as He really is, see Him face-to-face, as St Paul says. And then we will share in His divine life (we shall be like Him, St Paul says).

Of the gifts He gives to us on earth, the three most important gifts of the Holy Spirit are the so-called theological virtues: faith, hope and charity (divine love). St Paul tells us that all the gifts will eventually cease, including faith and hope. Only charity will endure in heaven. We will not need faith or hope in heaven because what we now (on earth) have faith in and what we now (on earth) have hope in will then (in heaven) be granted to us. We will receive God himself. So faith and hope will pass away eventually, and love will remain forever.

That is why just believing isn't enough. Because one day believing will disappear, and be replaced with utterly certain knowing and loving. What matters most is loving and union. We get both of these in the Eucharist, in the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

God could have saved us in anyway He chose. But the fact that the Eternal Son became a man for us, Jesus Christ, shows that there is a certain fittingness (a beauty and appropriateness) to the way God actually DID choose to save us. He became a human being, so that human beings could be saved. He uses material things in order to give us His divine grace (i.e. through the sacraments).

So Jesus Himself gave us His Body and Blood for us to eat. And in eating it with faith and the proper disposition, we become more and more united to Him. We eat what looks like bread and wine, and ingest them and digest them, and make them part of our bodies. But in so doing, Jesus takes us and 'ingests and digests' us, and makes us part of His body, the holy Church. So while faith is necessary, it is not of itself 'enough'. We must, as St Paul says, strive for the higher gifts. And the Eucharist is Christ's greatest gift to His disciples, to His Church. On day, in heaven, even the Eucharist will cease, but that is because the reality which is given to us now (on earth) as a sacrament---i.e. Christ himself----will then (in heaven) be given to us directly. Now (on earth) we eat with faith, because we know it looks like bread and wine, but with faith in Christ's words we know it is actually His Sacred Body and Blood. Then (in heaven) we will not need faith, because we shall see Him as He really is, in glory at the right hand of the Father, in the glory of the Spirit.

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