We talked this past week in the first session of our Living a Sacramental Life class about it all comes down to love. Life is about divine communion in love.
We mentioned quite a few Scriptures in our class, but one we didn’t read is perhaps the most explicit about how central and important love is in the Christian life:
If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.
1 Cor 13:1-3
Paul says if I have every spiritual gift conceivable (preaching, prophecy, faith, generosity…) but don’t have love it is nothing.
So the goal of the Christian life isn’t certitude about doctrine, perfection in morality, persuasiveness in speech, might in miracles. The goal is communion with God and each other in love.
This is what the Eucharist is about each and every week: partaking of the very life of God together as we are re-membered as his Body for the sake of the world.
Our friend Emily McGowin recently wrote a profound reflection on the Lord’s Supper we wanted to share with you that gets at this reality:
Isn’t Eating and Drinking the Body and Blood of Jesus…Gross?
The Eucharist is a reality in which we participate, not a dogma we seek to define. Good word for us, Emily, as we seek to consent to the communion with God and each other available to us in Communion.
In Love,
Fr. Matt
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