For atheists, human beings are accidental evolutionary meat-bags of no real importance. Everything is just material, so there is no real value in anything. Even the most noble human ideals are just electrical signals just as valuable, or worthless, as those anywhere else in nature. So anyone can do anything to you that they want: and why not? You’re just molecules.
If, however, you think your face should not be trampled on by whoever wants, that people owe you respect, and that people should treat you not as a thing but as a person—then you do not believe in a purely material world, but rather a material-spiritual one. And you are not just a material but also a spiritual being—you are a unity of body and soul: funnily enough, the very thing Jesus tells us we are.
This means that our body is really us. The thinking of most Westerners has for some centuries now been poisoned by the idea that our body is not really us—that what really counts, what is really “me,” is my thoughts, my soul, my heart, or my spirit. This is obviously not true. If someone whacks me in the head, no one says “Hey, you whacked the body that I am inhabiting!”: we say “You whacked me!” A human being is thus never just a mind, or a soul, or an angel, but a unity of body and soul.
But isn’t death a separation of body and soul? Absolutely. Don’t we continue after death? Certainly. Doesn’t that mean we don’t need, and are not, our bodies? No—because death is not normative for the human being: we were not always so. And because, even after the human person’s soul has been torn apart from their body, the soul is forever looking to be reunited with the body—which Jesus has now made possible in his resurrection: the Resurrection of the Body, and not the soul in heaven with God, is our final destination.
If our bodies are part of who we are, two consequences follow. First, that our bodies reveal who we are and how we can find happiness—already here and now on earth, as well as for the rest of eternity. That our bodies are male or female tells us that we are made by, exist for, and only accomplish ourselves in the mutual total gift of ourselves to each other: that we are made by and for love. That we only fulfil ourselves in the gift of ourselves to each other.
The second consequence is that it is through the acts of our bodies that we fulfil who we are. How do I make of myself a gift to others? Not just in feelings of love, or thoughts, but through the acts I make with my body, of service, respect, and love.
This is why the most obvious expression of love on earth is in the marital act—where a husband and wife fulfil in act what they have already made real in words at the marriage ceremony: the total and unreserved bodily gift of each to the other.
But there is no one who doesn’t want to be loved, who wants that love to end, who wants to be loved or love imperfectly. Only perfect eternal love, then, satisfies what our body and soul ache to receive and give: and so its only in experiencing God’s love for me, and having my love changed into his, that my humanity is fulfilled.
This is what is happening in Holy Communion. This is why Mass is called the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Holy Communion is an act of mutual total gift of persons, divine and human, each to the other, body and soul. This is a clearly deeply intimate exchange, which goes more deeply to the heart of our being and existence than anything else we can do. And of course in responding to the gift of Jesus to me by giving myself back to Jesus, I am giving myself not just back to him, but also to everybody else in communion with him—from the persons of the Trinity, to the Virgin Mary and all the angels and saints, to the brothers and sisters around me at Mass. It’s incredible and holy and sanctifying and transforming, and there is nothing like it.
This is why there is for everyone serious pause to reflect before deciding to give my body to God’s at Holy Communion. It’s one thing many priests ponder every time they kneel deeply at the altar just before the “Lamb of God.” Not about whether I am worthy— nobody is worthy. But whether I should do this act, whether giving my body to Christ, whether welcoming Christ’s body, really matches where I am at in my stage of life with Jesus today.
Because like any genuine act of love, Holy Communion is meant to be done in freedom: no one has to receive Holy Communion today. At Mass no one is under pressure, and everyone is free, to wait, if today I am not yet ready to receive Jesus in all that he is and thinks. Not out of an excessive scrupulousness—this does not come from God. But based on something grave and objective and freely chosen which means that, at least for today, I am not there yet.
For like any act of love, Holy Communion demands patience. While nobody likes having to wait, all of us, not a few, are called to patience, as that is a key part of genuine love. But being unique persons, each with our own history, where we are asked to be patient in our lives differs for each one of us. For some it concerns our health, for others a spouse, for others pregnancy, for others freedom from a vice—and for some of us, it can be to wait until I’m ready or able to receive Holy Communion.
But to have to wait is okay:—because every single other person also has to wait, for different things; because God gives us the grace to wait; and because God himself is always patiently waiting, at our side, for the proper time to change hearts and situations. To wait until I’m ready is thus an act of love which Jesus receives as an act of love: and it’s a powerful witness to everyone else. So if I find myself needing to decide to wait for a long time to be able to enter into Holy Communion, that is ok: I am living a communion of patience with every single other member of the church who also has to be patient, for all kinds of different reasons, and I am living that patience with God who is standing right next to me, waiting for that moment that is the right time—which is certainly coming, and will have absolutely been worth waiting for.