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About OUR ONE GREAT ACT OF FIDELITY:

More so than anything else, the Eucharist is what anchors many peoples' life, prayer and ultimately the way they live their lives. In this deeply personal book, Father Ronald Rolheiser delves into the history and meaning of this sacred tradition, drawing upon the insights of various scripture scholars, theologians and church teachings. With personal warmth and great insight, he reflects on his own particular Roman Catholic upbringing and the centrality that the Eucharist has within that tradition. At the same time, he looks at other denominations' traditions around the Eucharist. Our One Great Act of Fidelity is an investigation into the ways people secure their faith and belief and discover true intimacy with God and each other. Ultimately, however, it is a spiritual and a personal statement of how Ronald Rolheiser understands the Eucharist and why he celebrates it every day.

Excerpt:

As human beings we are sensual creatures in the true meaning of that term. We are creatures of the senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. Everything that enters us goes through one of those five senses and everything that comes out of us, all communication and expression, comes out through one of those same senses. We are not angels, pure spirits without bodies. We are incarnate spirits, souls that have a body, and so we need things that we can touch, see, hear, taste and smell.

The central tenet within Christianity, the very thing that defines it, is the belief that, in Christ, God took on concrete flesh and became tangible, physical, someone who can touch and be touched. Indeed the very word Christ ultimately means divine reality inside of human flesh.

When John wrote his Gospel, he did not include a Christmas story. In place of the birth of Jesus, he simply wrote, The word was made flesh and it lives among us. That single statement defines Christianity. Christianity isn't first and foremost a religion or a set of beliefs. Rather, parallel to the unfolding of the universe itself, it is an ongoing story, the story of God taking on physical flesh in this world, a story that began with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and that continues down to this very day. God is still taking on concrete flesh. How?

God took on flesh in Jesus, but the incarnation didn't end when Jesus ascended back to the Father after his resurrection. The incarnation is still going on. God is still taking on concrete flesh in this world. Where?

In the Christian Scriptures, the term the body of Christ is used to refer equally to three things: the historical body of Jesus, the body of believers, and the Eucharist. Each of these is referred to as the body of Christ. Each is the body of Christ. For instance, when Saint Paul refers to either the community of believers or the Eucharist, he never intimates that they are like Jesus, that they replace Jesus, that they are symbolic representations of Jesus, or even that they are a mystical presence of Jesus. Each is equally called the body of Christ, each is that place in our world where God takes on concrete flesh. God still has skin in this world, in the Eucharist and in the community of believers. The incarnation is still going on. The word is still becoming flesh and living among us.

That is the first, and the key, thing that must be said about the Eucharist. Along with the community of believers, the Eucharist is God's physical presence, God's real presence in the world. The Eucharist is the place where God continues to take concrete physical flesh just as he once did in the womb of Mary. In the Eucharist, the word continues to become flesh.