Sunday is the last special celebration in the wake of Easter.

Not that we are still in the Easter season—it ended on Pentecost. But still this Sunday is the capstone of all the celebrations since Holy Week. It gives us the last very important matter that still needs to come before us: the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Let us review the essence of Christianity as shown in our previous celebrations.

Holy Week: On Holy Thursday we saw Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. On Good Friday we watched Jesus as he chose the cross instead of “saving himself.” This is the highest example of real, lasting love we know of. It showed us who God is, and showed it in the flesh.

Easter: His life had been lost, but love could not be lost. So love returned him to life.

The Sundays after Easter: Jesus explained his sacrifice and his rising and their connection with the Father’s love for the world. Thanks be to God he did explain, because it is not the easiest thing to understand.

The Ascension: Jesus went away, back to the Father. He had come forth from the Trinity and now was completing the circle. But also he was making a home there for us. The Trinity works this way: by giving love (Incarnation) and returning love (Cross, Resurrection).

It was wonderful, but what if it were the end of the story? We would have only memories.

Pentecost: No, he is staying with us in the most important way possible. He is sending the inside of his life, the Holy Spirit, into our hearts. Christ’s heart would become our own heart and by this we would become his new and continuing body for the life of the world. With spiritual eyes we would see that the Holy Trinity is made of love and that our lives are included in that love.

The Body and Blood of Christ: Some people feel vaguely dissatisfied with the Holy Spirit. They want to touch her/him. And, since we live in a material world, how can some spirit way down deep inside us cope with materiality? Besides, we sin, often, and by doing so we oust the Spirit, or at least hide it. Moreover, even though we have the Spirit, we often forget about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

So he gives us himself in bodily form.

Jesus gives himself as bread, even as God gave Manna to the Israelites (First Reading) and his precious blood. After the table of the Word, we move to the table of the Eucharist, where he gives his fleshly body and blood to our fleshly body and blood.

This sacrament is the way we join in the physical life of Christ. His body becomes one with our bodies in an intimate transformation. This is an exact parallel to the way the Holy Spirit comes together with our spirit. This week’s feast of feeding is a bodily sending of us out into the physical/spiritual world to bring Christ to it.

This is the capstone of the mighty season of the Lord’s coming among us to feed us, to suffer with us, to die with us, and to bring all life back to its arch-original source, God-love.