Eating the flesh of Christ is not an easy thing. A routine reception of 'communion' does not ensure consuming Christ, the Word made flesh. Only by entering into communion with God and one another we can be 'satisfied' of eating Him. The flesh he gives us to eat is also a sacrament of human reality in its existential, biological and cosmological dimensions. Thus, the flesh given us to eat ("the bread I give to you is my flesh") has the taste of wounded humanity, its struggles and burdens, sweat, blood and tears. All narratives on suffering are beyond interpretations. His flesh interprets it for us. If the sacramental reception has no connection to the living reality of human flesh, our 'communion' has no relation with Christ.
'Attending' of mass, and receiving of communion as a receiving of 'food of great blessing,' and a 'bread of miraculous power' often keep the reality of communion aside. More than a communion that we enter into, it becomes an instrument of benefit from God. Approached as a sacrament of living presence of Christ, we can never be away from our responsible commitment to the injured flesh of humanity and nature.
Everything exists in him and for him. He holds all things in being. Our flesh, like the Word, is incarnated into communion. Thus his Word is our food, and his flesh is our food.
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