Christ is wholeness and life for the world. Christ is one. Seek the Lord and share in the wholeness of life. Have you ever felt empty, afraid, or alone? Overwhelmed with life? Jesus establishes one body, one blood for you to encounter.

Maybe the crowd around Jesus felt the same way when he talked about giving away eternal life at bargain-basement rates. Eat and drink and never die, he said. Yeah, right.

Jesus said to the crowd: “I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever."

It’s exciting to do something really hard with a bunch of other people who are trying to do the same thing. And there are even more people on the sidelines cheering you on. It’s an incredible feeling of camaraderie and community.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

The Gospel of John goes out of its way to emphasize that Jesus’ body and blood are real food and drink—an assertion that shocked and alienated some.

The Eucharist is not an abstract idea. It is an experience of mystery that will always be more than our struggle to articulate it. It is a “more” that is always shocking.

Could a body broken and blood spilled 2,000 years ago restore my own damaged life? —Frederica Mathewes-Green