Gossip

I killed him with words
With my tongue, my mouth
sunk my teeth into His
flesh and ripped until
blood flowed, but I did
not know He chose to
die. When my mouth
was full of His flesh,
He said, "Take and eat."
As His blood dripped
down my chin, He
said "Take and drink."
I tried to destroy
Him, but He destroyed
my sin. I wanted to
enslave Him, so He set
me free.

 I wrote this poem a few weeks ago after Mass, because I was just hit with a really vivid understanding of how we crucify Christ with our sins. He chose to die, but we still killed Him. In fact, we continue to kill him every time we sin. And when we use our hands to sin, we are killing Him with our hands. When we use our mouths to sin, we are killing Him with our mouths. I can't speak for everyone, but I think I sin with my words much more than with my actions. And during the Consecration a few weeks ago, I had an image in my head of me tearing into Christ's flesh with my teeth every time I ever uttered a sinful word (or failed to say necessary words). It's as if I think that I can destroy Him, destroy truth, by my words. If I repeat the same lies over and over, maybe I could convince myself that I wasn't even sinning, that there was no such thing as sin. And so I go to Jesus ready to tear Him apart, ready to try to devour Him. But He sees me coming. He knows how each of will injure Him, and He allows it. Because Jesus sacrifices Himself willingly, His death, which we have caused, brings about our redemption. I tear Him apart with my words, and He pours Himself, body and blood, soul and divinity, into my open mouth, and when His blood and flesh fill my mouth, my eyes are opened to the truth. He uses our sins to save us. He uses His death, caused by all human sin, as our salvation. He doesn't just wipe away or ignore our sins and then impose grace and salvation separately. He takes all of our failings, all of our hatred and malice and jealousy and anger, and he turns them around, using their results to glorify Him and to save our souls. So I don't think it's weird at all that God would tell me to eat His body and drink His blood, because it's not random. I was already trying to devour Him.

Sorry if none of that makes sense or if any of that is weird and/or completely wrong.

I'm praying for you!

:)