The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is, of course, a celebration of the Sacrament of the Altar. However, it also signifies that ours is a faith and a prayer life that is meant to be embodied. Jesus literally prayed through blood, sweat, and tears (Lk 22:44), signaled his Resurrection by eating (Lk 24:41), and cured with dirt and spit (Jn 9:6). Far from seeing faith and prayer apart from the body, Jesus centers life with God in the body, even “speaking about the temple of his body” (Jn 2:21).

In our own lives, it can be tempting to think of prayer and union with God as a way to somehow escape or override the body. Typically, contemplative practice finds us firmly rooted in the body, in the here, in the now, mindful of the ground on which we stand, the air we breathe, and the God at our center. Indeed, one way of effectively detaching from thoughts during prayer is to move our attention to our breathing, or to a place in the body, like the chest.

Jesus’s holiness was communicated not apart from his body and blood, but through it. Let us be open to experiencing our relationship with God in the same way.