Behold who you are...

Behold who you are, become what you receive! 

This, according to St Augustine, is what should be said as people prepare to receive Communion. I'd love to say I truly, and at depth, can believe and grasp the meaning of these words: but I'm also trying to to imagine how it would be if I could utterly, truly, deeply live as though I do! Imagine the effect on my life and mission, my relationships and encounters!

Behold who you are... You are the Body of Christ, his presence and his love for your world. You are blessed and holy, and you are broken... and you are given, to nourish and strengthen others; to be Christ's hands and heart for them, and love them with his love.

Become what you receive... Allow yourself to be radically transformed by Jesus' great gift, and his presence within you. Allow your brokenness to be healed and transfigured by Christ's, to be part of your gift and offering to others. Become more and more the Body of Christ, his presence and love; his hands and heart. Become, as he is, a love which gives itself, with selfless generosity; to the last crumb, the last drop; and which delights in this.

And let this beholding and becoming, and this believing in Christ's transforming work and grace within you, become a single, unbroken, circular movement in your life, and in your service. Then, as Pope Francis prayed in his Corpus Christi homily last year, we will break the bread of our lives in compassion and solidarity, so that through us the world may see the grandeur of God’s love. Then the Lord will come, he will surprise us once more, he will again become food for the life of the world.

Happy feast of Corpus Christi to you all! As you celebrate Jesus' amazing, unending gift of himself in a fragile wafer and wine, whether you hear these words or not, may you behold and know who you are, and go forth, to become what you receive for the life of the world...