HE ALSO EMBRACES US
We can say with
St. Ignatius: "Here is the place the Lord Jesus took me in His arms and
embraced me."
I
read this thought from a commentary this morning and I would like to pass it on
to you as well. It's too good to pass up!
One
of the most charming stories in the life of Jesus is that of Our Lord taking a
little child into His arms. The Apostles had been arguing as to which of them
was the greatest. Jesus told them: "If any man wishes to be first, he
shall be last of all, and servant of all." Then He took a little child,
and set him in the midst of them, and taking the child into His arms He said to
them: "Whoever receives one such child for My sake, receives Me; and
whoever receives Me; receives not Me, but Him who sent Me" (MK. 9:36).
According
to a tradition this little boy became the great St. Ignatius of Antioch who
gave his life for Christ in the year 107. While still a boy, Ignatius allegedly
often took his companions to the spot where Jesus held him and told his friends:
"Look here is the place the Lord Jesus took me in His arms and embraced
me." Call this a legend, a medieval fiction, if you will, but we do know
positively that Jesus did embrace a little child. That fact highlights my
thoughts for this weekend, namely, that in Holy Communion we not only embrace
Jesus, but Jesus also embraces us.
Perhaps
you have never thought of Holy Communion in that way. Correctly we say: "I
received Jesus in Holy Communion... Jesus came into my heart." We speak of
Communion as embracing Our Lord. But Communion also means that Our Lord
embraces us. Jesus takes us into His Heart in a special way. Not only is Jesus
in us; we are also in Jesus. That is one meaning of what Our Lord tells us in
today's Gospel: "Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood remains in
Me, and I in him." We can say with St. Ignatius: "Here is the place
the Lord Jesus took me in His arms and embraced me."
Picture
a child running to meet his father or mother. He throws little arms around his
father or mother's neck, hugging him or her with all his might. But the parent
sweeps the child up in his or her arms, hugging the child more lovingly.
Communion is something like that. We embrace Jesus. We take Him into our
hearts. Jesus embraces us today and He takes us into His Heart.
Pope
Pius XII, wrote in his encyclical, Mystici Corporis Christi: "The
Sacrament of the Eucharist is itself a striking and wonderful figure of the
unity of the Church, if we consider how in the bread to be consecrated many
grains go to form one whole...so that through Christ we may receive the spirit
of charity in which we are bidden to live now no longer our own life, but the
life of Christ, and to love the Redeemer Himself in all the members of His
social body."
Paul
wrote this in his letter to the Corinthians and it brings all this together for
us. "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for
we all partake of the one loaf."