“We go eat of this fruit of the tree of life because Jesus told us to. … He took upon himself our humanity that we might share in his divinity. We are nourished by his flesh that we may grow to be other Christs.” — Dorothy Day
For Servant of God Dorothy Day, the Eucharist was not merely one pleasant moment each day. For her, Mass was the most necessary part of each day. “The weight of the world is on me when I awake, and until I get to Mass,” she writes. Day is famous for her service to the poor and her social activism. Her radical hospitality fed thousands of hungry men and women. And the Eucharist was the spiritual food that sustained this work for humanity. Day’s commitment to both the Eucharist and feeding the hungry shows the inseparability of God’s great Commandments: to love him and to love our neighbors. Day writes: “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore.”
LET US PRAY
Lord Jesus, may the Eucharist help me to see you in those in need. May my service to the least be a sign of my devotion to you. Make your presence sustain my efforts to make the world a little less harsh and your love a little more clear. Amen.
PRAYER TO THE EUCHARIST
O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
-Collect for the Feast of Corpus Christi, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas