Sometimes at the Eucharist, as I am distributing the Sacrament, I imagine I am wielding an invisible needle and thread. With every placing of the Bread in the hands or tongue of a communicant and then the next as I go along the line, the body of Christ is being threaded together anew.

Every Eucharist is a remembering of the body of Christ as we remember and recall the Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament. And every Eucharist is a re-membering of the body of Christ, the Church, in which the threads that bind us together are reinforced. We recall that we are not our own. We are created for communion – communion with God and communion with one another. The Holy Spirit – the Holy Weaver – weaves, knits, and sews us together.

All of humanity is created for communion with God, communion with itself, and communion with all of creation. Part of the Church’s vocation is to be the sign and foretaste of that communion. The Church’s vocation is to be a sign and foretaste of the promise that all that is torn and tattered will be mended, rewoven, and knit back together. All that is torn and tattered in each of us can be mended. The torn and tattered fabric of human relationship and society can be mended. Creation, torn and tattered, can be repaired. It is not just about the Church. But, it is the mission of the Church to point to and live in anticipation of God’s restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).

That is the work of God. Only God can finally accomplish it. But Christians are called to participate in that mission and be menders in the world. It is the Church’s vocation, knit together by the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Eucharist, to be the loom of the Lord.

There is precedence for this image:

“But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

"Christ is likened to a needle the eye in which, pierced most painfully at his passion, now draws all after him, so repairing the tunic rent by Adam, stitching together the two peoples of Jews and Gentiles [and, by extension, every division that rends the human fabric], making them one for always." – Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), 'Catholicism, Christ and the Common Destiny of Man', referencing Paschasius Radbertus (785-865)

"One day a little girl sat watching her mother working in the kitchen. She asked her mommy, 'What does God do all day long?' For a while, her mother mother was stumped, but then she said, 'Darling, I'll tell you what God does all day long. He spends his whole day mending broken things.'" – Festo Kivengere (1921-1988), quoted in 'Glorious Companions'

"From Jesus began a weaving together of the divine and human nature in order that human nature, through fellowship with what is more divine, might become divine, not only in Jesus but also in all those who, besides believing in Jesus, take up the life which he taught; the life which leads everyone who lives according to the precepts of Jesus to friendship with God and fellowship with him." – Origen (184-253), 'Contra Celsus'

“For the sake of love all the saints resisted sin, not showing any regard for this present life. And they endured many forms of death, in order to be separated from the world and united with themselves and with God, joining together in themselves the broken fragments of human nature. For this is the true and undefiled theosophy of the faithful. Its consummation is goodness and truth – if indeed goodness as compassion and truth as devotion to God in faith are the marks of love. It unites men to God and to one another, and on this account contains the unchanging permanence of all blessings.” – Maximus the Confessor, ‘Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice’, 1st Century