“Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands.” But Jesus did not just somehow come to know that at the Last Supper. He already knew it before time began when the Father set in motion the creation of the whole universe. For the Father created all things through His Word, that is His Son. In creating everything through Him, He placed all things not just into His hands but into His whole being. Not one thing exists or can exist apart from the Son, the Word, Jesus Christ. All things exist in Him, are held together by Him and will be reconciled in Him. The whole universe is subject to His power, His command.

But that power is self-sacrificing love. His command is self-sacrificing love, “love one another as I have loved you.” The Father’s gift to His Son of this power and command over all things is itself a gift of self-sacrificing love on the Father’s part. And where the Father and the Son are, there, too, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit personifies the love of the Father and the Son. God, the Trinity, is Love.

If someone were to ask the question, “what is there beyond the confines of the universe?” or “what surrounds the universe?” the only answer is the loving, self-sacrificing Trinity. But not only are the universe and everything in it surrounded by the love of the Trinity. They are also permeated by it, soaked in it. God’s love is the ground beneath our feet, the air we breathe, the rhythm of our heartbeat, the life which nourishes our bodies with food and drink. His love is the source of the beauty and order of nature. His love is the substance of all true human loves, the most tender and the most passionate, the most idyllic and the most tragic. Where can we escape from this loving God? We cannot escape Him. We cannot escape Love. If we climb the heavens, He is there. If we lie in the grave, He is there. The dark night is bright as day to Him. He is everywhere and in everything because He is I AM.

But the apple of His eye, the fiercest desire of His Heart and of His dreams is the human heart, the cauldron and centre of every human person’s deepest being. God has chosen not to care for His own immensity or omnipotence or glory except in order to pour it all out in love into every human heart who will respond to Him. He desires to do all things for us. That is why He created us, so that He could wash our feet and wash our souls and heal our brokenness and redeem our life from the grave and place us on His own throne. No cost could be too great for Him to achieve that. No humiliation or suffering could be too much. If He had to beg for our love, then beg He would. If He had to endure rejection and indifference from frozen hearts, then endure it He would. If He had to suffer and die and lie in a grave, then so be it. And He did. He most certainly did.

And as if that were not enough, He devised an ingenious way to make all of that always available to every generation of human hearts to which His creative love would give human life. For He did not want there to be anyone who would doubt His love, or who might think that only those living at the time of Jesus would have access to Him, while the rest just had bad luck. That ingenious way is both a meal and a sacrament, the Holy Eucharist. If our Amen is true, the Eucharist mediates to us all of His self-sacrificing love as poured out to the end on the Cross. It also mediates to us all of the victorious power of His resurrection. By it we are already, in anticipation, partakers of heaven, and so bearers of heaven even as we pilgrim on earth. By the Eucharist we each become one with Him in all the dimensions of His being and in all the dimensions of our own being. Therefore, we are made one with one another in Him and through Him, both with those who believe in Him and with those who seek Him with a sincere heart.

Through Him we are one with all things which exist in Him. And since there is no thing which does not exist in Him, then the Eucharist makes us one with the entirety of creation. Still more exaltedly, through the Eucharist we are made one with the Blessed Trinity. We sit at God’s table, not as guests or strangers or slaves, but as sons and daughters, as men and women made divine. This is God’s desire. This is His promise. This is our destiny, our true fulfilment as human beings, our glory and our everlasting joy and peace. We have no destiny in this passing world or in anything or anyone in it. We are more than mad if we think we do.

With a brother’s love, Jesus has provided the ministry of ordained priests to ensure that the Eucharist, the true engine and driving force of the unification of the world in God, will be available until He comes again. Then, there will be no more Eucharist, but only the reality of eternal communion in the life and love of God. Just as the priest exists for the service of the Eucharist, and whose true place is at the feet and at the hands of his people, we can say that human beings in this world exist to receive that service so as then to embody and diffuse it into the world, in marriage, family, work and society. Through the people of God, fed and nourished with the Eucharist, Christ extends and continues to the end of time the transubstantiation of our beautiful if suffering and tragic world back into the hands and whole Body of Christ. Despite what the world may think, it is Christ’s, not ours. All our plans and purposes will come to nothing without Christ. We each belong to Him, not to ourselves or to one another except in Him. He alone is our fulfilment, so He alone must be the measure of who we are.

This truth is not a threat to our human happiness, but its guarantee. The words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper are embedded and surrounded by a deep affection and warmth. There is a strength to His tenderness and gentleness which emanate from the depths of His Trinitarian Heart. Judas’ treachery and Peter’s empty protestations may seem like the blast of a foghorn, but the humble goodness of Jesus prevails and reassures. And these beautiful and healing gifts of Christ’s love are there at every Mass, at every hour of adoration, at every quick visit to the tabernacle. If we would but give Him the inner space and time to love us at Mass, both personally and as a parish community, His ways and desires for us would become ever clearer and our souls and hearts ever more peaceful. If the longest journey begins with the smallest step, then the transubstantiation of the world begins with the heartfelt surrender of each of us to the Eucharistic Lord. His hands and Heart are open and willing. What about ours?