EUCHARIST AS TOUCHSTONE

Jesus says, “If you eat this bread you will live forever” (John 6:51). You're indestructible, as it were. You see, if I live by the momentary identity that others give me, that’s what dies when I die, and I’m left with nothing. Your relative identity is what passes away. When Jesus says He's giving Himself to you as the “bread of life” and “If you eat this bread you will live forever,” he's saying, “Find yourself in Me, and this will not pass or change or die. Eat this food as your primary nutrition, and you are indestructible.”

You learn to live in what Thomas Merton would call the True Self—who you are, and always have been, in God. Who you are in God is who you forever are. In fact, that's all you are, and it is more than enough. Everything else is passing away. Reputations, titles, and roles do not determine our identity. As Paul puts it, “I live no longer; not I, but God lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). When I hand out the bread I love to say to the assembly, “You become what you eat. Come and eat who you are!”