Holy Communion is the Lord’s way of saying that we need never be apart from him in our lives. He will always be there for us. As Pooh puts it, “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.”

The church has a single focus today—the death of Christ—but her Christ still lives, still suffers in her members and still feeds her with his flesh. We pause in time. Christ does not.

St. Thomas arrives at the very center of what happened at the Last Supper, of what would happen the next day on the cross and of what happens at every subsequent Eucharist. With his own hands, Christ gives himself to us.

Our senses will be deceived by the appearance of bread and wine, which is why St. Thomas Aquinas insists that we trust only one of our senses, our hearing. On Easter, we solemnly proclaim and hear, silently sounding within our hearts, the saving news of the Gospel.

Before the soldiers arrive, before the physical attacks, in the silence of the night, the soul of Christ struggles in agony.

Unless we remove all of the people, we will never produce a sinless church, one that pursues the good without also perpetrating some evil.