The well-known Christian writer Henri Nouwen makes the following meaningful comment about the Lord's Supper: "On the night before his death, Jesus gave us the gift of his lasting presence in our midst in order to remind us in the most personal way that his death was a death for us."

First, in Henri's statement, notice the word gift. He is informing us that Christ in giving His life for us was a gift that He willingly gave to everyone. Next, he adds that Christ's gift was a gift of special significance: the gift of his lasting presence in our midst. In other words, Christ's gift would be His ongoing presence through the Holy Spirit and not a one-time present. Finally, Henri tells us that Christ's gift was personal - a very personal reminder that His death was really a death for each and every one of us. He then adds: "That is why Paul remarks in his letter to the Corinthians, 'Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death'" (see I Cor. 11:26, J.B.).

Henri then goes on to speak about how impactful the Eucharist - the Lord's Supper - was in his life. In simple terms, it was his life.

"My whole being is rooted in the Eucharist. I sometimes wonder if those who are close to me are sufficiently aware of the fact that the Eucharist constitutes the core of my life. I do so many things and have so many secondary identities - teacher, speaker, and writer - that it is easy to consider the Eucharist as the least important part of my life. But the opposite is true. The Eucharist is the centre of my life and everything else receives its meaning from that centre. I am saying this with so much emphasis in the hope that you will understand what I mean when I say that my life must be a continuing proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ. It is first and foremost through the Eucharist that this proclamation takes place."

He goes on to state: "What is important is the realization that through participation in the Eucharist, our lives and our deaths are being lifted up in the life and death of Christ. This is an enormously mysterious reality, but the more deeply we enter into it the more comfort and consolation we will find." And it is "during our few years of conscious participation in the Eucharist, our lives and deaths become part of this ongoing proclamation of the life and death of Christ."

What Henri is emphasizing is that during our life by eating the bread and drinking the wine, our life is transformed into the life of Christ and that in our death, our death is lifted up into His death so that living with Christ we could also die with him. As Henri stated: "This is an enormously mysterious reality."

He then writes: "The more we see the Eucharist as a proclamation of Christ's death, the more we start seeing that our own deaths in communion with Christ cannot be in vain." In other words, "the Eucharist" is not only at the core of our life, but "it helps us to prepare ourselves for our own deaths; and it points above all to Christ, who gives us his body and blood as a constant reminder that death is no longer a reason for despair but has become in and through him the basis of our hope" (see I Cor. 15:54: "Death has been swallowed up in victory").

However, with all this being said in an attempt to explain and understand the Eucharist - the Lord's Supper - Henri reminds us: "The Eucharist can never be fully explained or understood. It is a mystery to enter and experience from within," therefore, "This Do In Remembrance Of Me" (Lk. 22:19, K.J.V.).