The Body and Blood of Christ

Become What You Receive

St. Augustine’s famous admonition on the Eucharist, “Behold what you are; become what you receive”, reveals the dynamic between the taking and becoming the dynamic of the Eucharist. 

In the Eucharistic celebration, the priest’s actions are taking, blessing, breaking, and giving; the part that is often left out of the discussion is the taking and becoming of all who receive. But we who receive are also taking, and rather than blessing the bread, the bread becomes a source of blessing for ourselves so that we might be a blessing to the world—the world yet to be transformed by Christ. Also, rather than breaking the bread, we become broken in our blessing. In Augustine’s saying, “Behold what you are” comes before “Become what you receive”. Approaching the Body and Blood of Christ sacrificed for us, we behold our great need for God’s grace because we experience blessing. The image of brokenness works on two levels: to be shared, the substance must be divided, broken. In the sharing of ourselves, we freely distribute the blessing we have been given and have become. Broken also suggests the suffering of Christ’s sacrifice, the “way of the cross”. We must become true flesh, accept we are not gods, break our egoism to bless and celebrate our humanity.

We then, in our common priesthood, in our lives, do what the priest does at the altar: We take, bless, break and give, stripped of our false humanity, and reveal a great blessing that God has sanctified, what He has created and found very good.