"Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh, and trotted across to the Lion.
'Please,' she said, 'you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd much sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.'
'Dearest daughter,' said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her twitching velvet nose, 'I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours.'"
+ From the Boy and his Horse, The Complete Collection of the Chronicles of Narnia, p 298
"Holy Communion illumines, brightens, and sanctifies all the power and senses of man's soul and body; and strengthens the soul in doing the commandments of the Lord and every other virtuous act. It is the true food of the soul and of the body, as our Lord says: 'My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed' (Jn. 6:55)."
+ St. Macarios of Corinth
"Isn’t a meal together the most beautiful expression of our desire to be given to each other in our brokenness? The table, the food, the drinks, the words, the stories: Are they not the most intimate ways in which we not only express the desire to give our lives to each other, but also to do this in actuality?
I very much like the expression “breaking bread together,” because there the breaking and the giving are so clearly one. When we eat together we are vulnerable to one another. Around the table we can’t wear weapons of any sort.
Eating from the same bread and drinking from the same cup call us to live in unity and peace. This becomes very visible when there is a conflict. Then eating and drinking together can become a truly threatening event; then the meal can become the most dreaded moment of the day. We all know about painful silences during dinner. They contrast starkly with the intimacy of eating and drinking together, and the distance between those sitting around the table can be unbearable.On the other hand, a really peaceful and joyful meal together belongs to the greatest moments of life.
Don’t you think that our desire to eat together is an expression of our even deeper desire to be food for one another? Don’t we sometimes say: “That was a very nurturing conversation. That was a refreshing time”? I think that our deepest human desire is to give ourselves to each other as a source of physical, emotional, and spiritual growth. Isn’t the baby at its mother’s breast one of the most moving signs of human love? Isn’t “tasting” the best word to express the experience of intimacy? Don’t lovers in their ecstatic moments experience their love as a desire to eat and drink each other?
As the Beloved ones, our greatest fulfillment lies in becoming bread for the world. That is the most intimate expression of our deepest desire to give ourselves to each other."
+ Fr Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved
"The purpose of liturgy is that we are supposed to become what we celebrate. The purpose of the Eucharist is not to change bread and wine into Jesus Christ, it is to change you and me into Jesus Christ. We are supposed to become the ‘Word of comfort and forgiveness,’ we are supposed to become the ‘Bread of Life for the world,’ we are supposed to become the ‘healing oil.’ Thus, there is no possibility of separating liturgy and spirituality.
Liturgy is simply the mirror of what we are supposed to be. So that when we leave the liturgical assembly, we are supposed to go out and be what it is that we celebrated. That is why St Paul never once uses sacral terminology like sacrifice, offering, liturgy, priesthood and so forth for anything except Christian life in Christ.
What we do in church is simply the initiation into, and the feeding, restoration, and the intensification through preaching and the sacraments of what we are supposed to be. If we do not become it, we might as well stay in bed on Sunday morning, because what we are doing is just a comedy. So liturgy and spirituality are one, they cannot be separated. Of course if they are separated, we would have sucked all the meaning out of what liturgy is supposed to be. So the purpose of liturgy is that we become that which it exemplifies. Liturgy holds up to us the model of Christian life; what is the model of Christian life? What do we put on the altar? We put on bread that was broken and blood that was poured out as signs of what we are supposed to be. When we put the bread and the chalice on the altar as the signs, which become through the invocation of the Holy Spirit the body that was broken for us and the blood that pours out, we are saying ‘I’m doing this because this is what I know I’m supposed to be.'"
+ Fr Robert Taft
"My sister, my bride, you ravished my heart;
You have ravished my heart with one look from your eyes,
With one jewel of your necklace."
+ Song of Songs 4:9
