Life’s Source, Center and Summit

Life can be confusing. Life can be frustrating.

One can be lost in life. And many of us are, whether we know it or not.

One can exhaust life without living it.

Many of us define life as pleasure. The more pleasure, the more we feel alive. But is that what is all about? Many of us have also experienced that after the pleasure comes the hang over, comes the misery we were running away from. Misery can never be cured by pleasure. Misery can only be cured by love.

This redeeming love has a name, the name of the Redeemer, Jesus the Christ. Only in Christ can life be alive.

“For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him” - Colossians 1:16

Jesus is the source, center and summit of our life.

Since Jesus made Himself the source of our lives, we need Him. We need him not only in our thoughts and imagination, we need Him physically. We humans are both spirit and flesh. We need to be alive not only in spirit but also in body. That is why Jesus left us His very Self in the Eucharist. “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” – Matthew 28:20.

The Most Holy Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. In short, the Eucharist is Jesus Himself, in the appearance of bread and wine. When we consume the Host, we consume Jesus Himself.

In the Eucharist, our whole being receives life itself. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” says Jesus. All the life in the universe enters not only our spirit but our bodies as well. The Life that created everything now flows in our very veins, in our very blood.

When we partake of the Eucharist we also let love in, a love that is not just an emotion or attraction, but realest love. We let Love Himself, Jesus who is love made flesh, in our own flesh.

The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch." – 1324 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Only Jesus can give us life and life to the full. Until we make Him the very center of the fabric of our being, we shall remain miserable. We were made for love, and love is our only true joy. And this love can only be found in Jesus.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. -Jn 6:53

The Eucharist is everything for us, for Jesus is everything to us.

Written by Daxx Bondoc