How beautiful and peaceful it is to rest in Church and quietly meditate on the tremendous Gift of Jesus' Real Presence alive in us. The priest gives us each a Host - Jesus coming to each of us as individuals. Jesus speaks to us in our hearts individually, loves us each individually, calls us to follow Him individually.
Jesus calls each of us to freely unite with Him, to offer ourselves, bodies and souls, to sacrificially do the work of the Father, even as that leads us to carry our own crosses. This is why we speak of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Once again Jesus offers His Whole Self to the Father and simultaneously we offer our whole selves to the Father, - ready to do what the Father asks of us.
But Jesus also comes to us humbly in a Meal of simple food and drink to transform us, cell by cell of our bodies, inch by inch of our souls, into becoming more and more Christlike, into living in Christ as Christ lives in us. Because we do not just receive Jesus, Who walked the hills of Galilee. We receive the Risen Christ and His entire Body. St. Paul said it - "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 6:15.)
We celebrate each Mass together with other members of the Body of Christ to celebrate our unity and community in Him, with Him, and through Him. And as we eat the Body of Christ, we receive fully into ourselves the Communion of Saints, all the living and the dead, who are Christ's Body.
We may kneel in a Church in a white American suburb, but in receiving Christ, we are receiving all the members of the Black and Hispanic Churches in the nearest inner city. We may kneel in a Black or Hispanic Church in an American city, but when we receive the Host, we are receiving into ourselves the Korean members of Christ's Body who worship in Seoul. We may worship as members of Christ's Body still here on earth, but we are receiving everyone who has died before us, including, most intimately, those whom we have loved who have gone before us. In the Eucharist, we are united with those loved ones once more.
No wonder receiving the Eucharist is meant to transform us, cell by cell of our bodies, inch by inch of our souls. Such a Mystery of Unity and Community is something we need to chew upon over and over again. Our fragile, limited selves can scarcely comprehend the enormity of this Truth. Eucharist is meant to transform how we live, how we love. Eucharist allows us to exchange our hearts for Christ's Heart so we can love all as He loves all, as He gave His life for all. So we reach out to risk our all, body and soul, in love, and we pray in the silence "my Lord and my God." Only God can work such a transformation in us!