We were created as celebrants of the sacrament of life, of its transformation into life in God, communion with God … [R] eal life is “eucharist,” a movement of love and adoration toward God, the movement in which alone the meaning and value of all that exists can be revealed and fulfilled … [I]n Christ, the new Adam, the perfect man, this eucharistic life was restored to man. For He Himself was the perfect Eucharist.

The Eucharist not only envisions an ontology of participation and deification. It is also a model for discipleship, and thus it is profoundly ethical and political … the Eucharist is an expression of God's own body offered to humanity for the purpose of constituting communion.

God only wise, You delight to make your people out of food; and the food out of which you make us is your body and blood. As we have become your body in the eating of food, bless those with whom we share food this week, and bless those with whom we share you and in whom we meet you; that in being made your body, we may become food for your world, and through the change they see in us, all may come to praise the glories of your name.