Union With Christ

This Saturday I attended Mass at a different parish, where a priest I didn’t know made an arresting illustration in his homily.

He spoke about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who did much to champion the cause of the poor in El Salvador before being assassinated in 1980. Romero was shot while he was elevating the chalice, full of the blood of Christ. Romero’s own blood mingled with the blood of the Savior as he lay dying.

Our lives, too, must be given up in a self-sacrificial union with Christ. His life, his blood, truly mingles with ours as we receive him in the Eucharist. We maintain union with Christ through the other Sacraments, our life of prayer, and our good works. This union must become stronger each day so that eventually, we will fail to see where Christ’s life begins and ours ends. We, and more importantly, others, will find Jesus is living his life through us.

This is exactly what it means to be Christians, “other Christs”.