Flesh and blood is the whole being. Blood is the principle of life, flesh the body. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ gives his body and blood for all and for everyone. For believers, the bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ. They express our humanity, body and blood, intimately linked to the divinity of the one who took on this humanity.
The word "communion" is not to be taken lightly: it means "to make community", and this community is built and signified by sharing a meal that makes us all "one" in Christ himself. Bread and wine change their meaning here. Bread, symbolizing in our regions all food, means life. Wine is a symbol of joy of life and celebration: we invite each other to "have a drink". When Jesus takes the bread and wine at his last supper, he takes all this into account to bring it to an unexpected and unimaginable meaning: he becomes our bread for a life that death cannot destroy, our wine for an eternal joy. But this life and this joy can only be received by being one body: any division with others reveals itself as a division within ourselves, a conflict that generates death. Nourished by the same flesh, we are animated by the same life; irrigated by the same blood, we are all members of the same body, of which the Church is the figure. Many in one, we thus become images of God.
Excerpt from a homily by Fr. Marcel Domergue, SJ
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