“And then came words they had not heard before.

‘Take, eat; this is my Body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

They must have looked up, startled. What did he mean?

They must have looked at his body, and remembered how ceaselessly it had been spent and given in the toil of love ever since they had known him. How his body would be given for them on the cross, broken for his children at every Eucharist until the world’s end, they could not know yet, but as they took the bread that he gave them, and ate it in wonder and reverence, there must have been a confused prayer in their hearts that their bodies too might become bodies of love to live and die for him.”

Elizabeth Goudge, God So Loved the World

photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel