God wants you to be physically joined with Him

By Pat Arensberg
For The Catholic Week
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Not so fast my friends.  We are in the early stages of Advent, and in this liturgical year we are also kicking off the Year of the Eucharist and the Parish.  In this offering I want to look at the fact that the God of the Universe takes on our humanity; joins our human nature to His divine personage, and enters physically into our world.  
We are all familiar with the line from the beginning of John’s Gospel, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.” (Jn 1:14)  God desired and continues to desire to be with us physically.  In the coming weeks of preparation for Christmas and then during the celebration of Jesus’ birth let us ponder the fact that God loves us so much that He took on our mortal flesh so that He could walk with us, talk with us, and ultimately save us from our sins.  God chose to bind himself physically to us.
This Christmas message seen through the Year of the Eucharist and the Parish should lead us to reflect on the fact that Jesus chose to be physically with us.  Why would that change at the end of His ministry?  It wouldn’t and it didn’t.  Jesus still desires to be physically close to us.  In fact, at the Last Supper He instituted the Eucharist so that He could continue to be physically close to us and in fact to be physically in union with us.  The next day He offers himself (body, blood, soul and divinity) on the Cross for us, and is resurrected on the following day.
We all love to be with others.  Not being able to gather with others is one of the great hardships of dealing with COVID-19.  Zoom is great.  Facetime is great.  Phone calls are great.  
Texts are useful.  None of these can hold a candle to being physically present with each other.  That’s why we gather at the holidays, and don’t just call (if at all possible).  
God doesn’t want to settle for a phone call.  He wants you to become physically joined with Him in the Eucharist.  It will be the greatest gift you receive this Christmas.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life.  Email him at [email protected] 
For more information concerning the events of this office, visit us at mobilefaithformation.org