Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1505021
20 AUGUST 2023 | DENVER CATHOLIC In response, we might be tempted to think, "Is that all?" It seems so simple and hidden, while we look for something more easily sensed and practically used. Jesus offers us something infinitely greater: the food of his divine life. Such a great gift can be easily overlooked or taken for granted. We miss the hidden offering of Jesus's whole self to the Father, which draws us into his love, offering us the communion for which we were made. We can't be happy without it, but we continue to look past it, fixated on the junk food of earthly pleasure and comfort. Do we preserve the gift of this life within us? It is not enough to show up at Mass on Sunday or to receive the Eucharist in a routine way. We need to make a choice to accept this gift, and to make a gift of ourselves to Jesus in return. This is what communion looks like — a reciprocal giving and receiving that enables us to abide in Jesus and him in us. This com- munion is so strong that it should transform us into Christ in the world, becoming his presence within it and to others as a kind of tabernacle. We cannot preserve his presence in us if we live like everyone else in the world, pursuing other things more than him. If we are in communion with Jesus, we must live "as one" with him, enabling him to be present in us and through us. The true gift of Jesus's life might be an inte- rior one, but it should change everything. Jesus himself said that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will never die (Jn 6:50), because his life is greater than the life of this world. This gift acts as a spiritual leaven that enlivens everything, beginning within our heart as the core and building out from there, layer upon layer." Christ's Charge to Peter, Raphael, 1515.