Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

The Responsorial (Psalm 105) invites us: “Remember the marvels the Lord has done.” Wisdom 18:14 to 19:9 “remembers the marvels” God did just by his “all-powerful Word” sent into “the heart of a doomed land.” The “whole creation… was… newly fashioned in its nature.”  

This is the marvel we experience in Communion when it is the all-powerful Word himself, the Word made flesh in Jesus, who comes into our own hearts. Hearts that have already been made “a new creation” by Baptism. Hearts are already sharing in the divine life of God.  

If, after receiving Christ in Communion, we close our eyes and just let ourselves be aware of what is at that moment, we will know that we are filled with “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (12Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 1:23). 

We are caught up in consciousness of a new level of existence. This favor, the “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” was given to us at Baptism. In Communion, we experience Jesus, God made flesh, putting himself into our hands and entering into our body under the form of bread and wine. The Bread of Life makes the gift of receiving God’s Life a physical experience.  

In each of the other sacraments, Jesus comes to do something. In Baptism, to incorporate us into his body. In Reconciliation, to heal and guide us in discipleship. In Confirmation, to empower us for mission by the special “gift of the Spirit.” In Matrimony and Holy Orders, to seal us in a special relationship to each other or to the bishop for the ministry of forming Christian community in the home or broader Church. In Anointing, to strengthen us to speak the final, all-encompassing “Yes” to God that brings our faith, hope, and love to perfection. But in the Rite of Communion, he just comes to give us himself.  

He abandons himself to us. Not so much for us as he did on the cross, as to us (although the sacrifice and sacrificial meal are inseparable). He puts himself into our hands—literally. He says, “Take this and eat. This is my Body given up for you.” He “hands himself over” to us in a gesture so shocking that many don’t dare to accept it. This is total abandonment to us. It invites total abandonment from us.  

Essentially, in desire and intention, we did this at Baptism, when we abandoned ourselves to death with Jesus and in Jesus on the cross, to rise with him and in him to live as his body on earth. But in practical living, we experience this more as a commitment than as an accomplished fact.  

In practice, we are still not perfectly, totally given. In action, we frequently fail to live by the Life that is ours. So as disciples, learning to follow his Way with a clearer understanding of his Truth, we repeatedly use the sacrament of Reconciliation. Each time, we recommit to embodying perfectly the mystery of our Baptism—“Christ in us, the hope of glory”—by letting his words take flesh in all we do. We keep growing toward total abandonment. (Colossians 1:27). 

Action: After you receive Communion at your seat, consciously offer all you have to Christ.  

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #496, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.