“…the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (Jerusalem Bible, John 6:51)

The centre of the Christian religion is not Our Lord’s teaching, but his Person; not what he said so much as who he is, the Eternal God himself who for us and for our salvation came down from Heaven and was made Man.  And the first step in that amazing act of condescension was when the Archangel Gabriel was sent to Our Lady to tell her that she was to be the Mother of God, for of her body she was to form Our Lord’s Body and give him to us and to the world.

And so Jesus Christ, God made Man, was born and in Mary’s warm arms his infant form was cradled.  His body, which was truly part of himself, was also truly human and with it he took to himself our human nature in its fullness.  Thus by becoming Man he formed a kinship with us whereby he became one with us so that we might become one with him.  He united himself to us on our level in order to lift us up to his.