This is all about communion, a word that means “with union” or “with oneness.” However, if we switch the words around, we have “union with” or “one with.” And that is a better description of what is taking place.

St. Paul captures the two most important aspects of this “union with” when he writes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for all partake of the one loaf.”(I Cor 10:16-17) There are two aspects to this “union with”: we are in union with the body and blood of Christ, and we are in union with one another.

It is not enough that we have life due to the reception of the Eucharist, as Jesus tells us in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” [Jn 56-57] The intimacy with Jesus is even more profound than this gift of life. As St. Augustine stated in an Easter homily (#227): “If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.” We become what we eat! We become Christ. This reminds me, in a way, of the Borg in the Star Trek shows. We become assimilated to Christ himself, to his very spirit.

Father Cantalamessa (Third Lenten Homily, March 25, 2022) uses the analogy of marriage: “The Eucharist — to use a bold but true image — is the consummation of the marriage between Christ and the Church. Therefore, Christian life without the Eucharist is marriage which has been ratified, but not consummated … [T]he immediate consequence of marriage is that the body (that is, the whole person) of the husband becomes the wife’s and, vice versa….This means that the incorruptible and life-giving flesh of the Incarnate Word becomes ‘mine,’ but also my flesh, my humanity, becomes Christ’s.”

The Catechism (1393) notes that we cannot be united to Christ “without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins.” Now the Catechism adds (1395): “The Eucharist is not ordered to the forgiveness of mortal sins — that is proper to the sacrament of reconciliation. The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church.”

This brings us to the second aspect of “union with.” Now, clearly, we have all been made one by our baptism in Christ. Nonetheless, as we are all being united more closely with Jesus in Communion, this cannot but deepen our communion with one another. This is why not “being in communion” with other Christians is a scandal for which Jesus always prays, with the hope that we may be one. So, our partaking in the Lord’s body and blood is always a challenge to us to seek that perfect communion with our sisters and brothers, which the Lord himself is seeking, even as we know that such unity remains imperfect now.

This union with others takes on a unique coloration since our union with Christ has made us other Christs. As such, we are his eyes and ears and hands and feet, and this brings us to serve those whom Christ most loved to serve: the poor and the needy. The 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel calls us to serve anyone in need as if we were serving Christ himself. As we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we become Jesus, serving Jesus in one another. That is communion beyond our imagining.