From today’s gospel: “Jesus said to them . . . ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.'"

“For how long has Jesus been presenting himself to you and knocking at the door of your heart to make his dwelling within you, and you have not wanted to receive him? Why? Because he only presents himself under the form of a poor man, a slave, a man of sorrows." (De La Salle, Med. 85.1)

“The Christ, who nourishes us under the consecrated species of bread and wine, is the same One who comes to us in the everyday happenings; He is in the poor person who holds out his hand, in the suffering one who begs for help, in the brother or sister who asks for our availability and awaits our welcome. He is in the child who knows nothing about Jesus or salvation, who does not have faith. He is in every human being, even the smallest and the defenceless. The Eucharist . . . is the school of charity and solidarity." (Pope Francis, Angelus on the Feast of Corpus Christi, June 7, 2015)

If Jesus is within us, then our sharing in communion with Christ compels us to live in and share more fully that community with all. And as De La Salle and Pope Francis suggest, the fullness of that charity and community is found in the marginalized of every nature. While we serve those who live on the margins of our local society in many ways, what of those in our school community who are marginalized within it? What of those who are ostracized socially for some reason? Those who are ignored in class because they have trouble reading, or are thought of as “not smart" (or sometimes, because they are “smart")? What of our students who eat alone or walk to class alone? May Jesus, who forever lives in our hearts, compel us to seek out and more fully nourish those who are hiding in the margins of our community.