Road to Fifty Reflections: Day 18

 “This Is My Body”

I came across a post that struck me deeply ~ a reminder that Jesus, in His infinite humility, chose to enter the world through the womb of Our Blessed Mother. He did not come as a spirit hovering above the earth, but as flesh, as life growing in a woman’s womb. In that moment, the Word became flesh and the sanctity of the human body was forever affirmed.

Reflecting on this, I can’t help but think of how our world treats the body today... the way life in the womb is dismissed through abortion, how the body is often violated or mutilated and how even our understanding of who we are  --- male and female --- is blurred by confusion and pain. We live in a time that proclaims autonomy over the body, as if it were something separate from the soul, something we can alter or discard at will.

Yet in the Eucharist, Jesus stands before us and says, “This is My Body.” These words echo through time ~ from the manger to the Cross, from Mary’s womb to the altar. They are a declaration that the body is not meaningless. IT IS SACRED. It is the vessel through which love becomes visible.

In giving us His Body, Jesus reclaims what the world seeks to profane. He shows us that holiness is not found in denying our flesh, but in offering it ---  in allowing it to be a means of love, of sacrifice, of communion.

When I hear “This is My Body,” I am reminded that my own body is meant to reflect that same truth: that life is sacred from conception to death; that identity is not constructed, but received; and that the body, no matter how fragile or wounded, can become a living Eucharist --- a place where God dwells.

May I, like Mary, allow the Word to become flesh in me... 

that through my body, my choices and my love, 

Christ may once again enter the world.