look at it a little more carefully, and see how it comes about. How does bread
270 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS have it all; I said it in a moment. But you must weigh the words, don't count them. If you count the words, it's short enough; if you weigh them, it's tremen¬ dous. One loaf, he said. However many loaves may be placed there, it's one loaf, however many loaves there may be on Christ's altars throughout the world, it's one loaf But what does it mean, one loaf! He explained very briefly: one body is what we, being many, are. This is the body of Christ,5 about which the apostle says, while addressing the Church, But you are the body of Christ and his members (1 Cor 12:27). What you receive is what you yourselves are, thanks to the grace by which you have been redeemed; you add your signature to this, when you answer Amen. What you see here is the sacrament of unity.
The body of Christ is made one by the harmony of charity
2. So now, because the apostle suggested very briefly to us what this is, let's look at it a little more carefully, and see how it comes about. How does bread come about? It's threshed, ground, goes from the mixing of the dough to the baking; in the mixing it's purified, in the baking it's made firm.6 This is what you have become. Where or when was your threshing?7 It consisted in the fasts, the Lenten observances, the vigils, the exorcisms. You were being ground when you were being exorcised. Dough isn't mixed without water; you were baptized. Baking is troublesome, but useful. What is your baking, after all? The fire of trials and temptations, without which this life cannot be lived. But how is it useful? The oven tests the potter's jar, and the trial of tribulation just men (Sir 27:5). But just as one loaf is made from single grains collected together and some¬ how mixed in with each other into dough, so in the same way the body of Christ is made one by the harmony of charity. And what grains are for the body of Christ, grapes are for his blood; because wine too comes out from the press, and what was separated one by one in many grapes flows together into a unity, and becomes wine. Thus both in the bread and in the cup there is the mystery, the sacrament, of unity.
The words of the preface of the Mass explained
3. As for what you heard at the Lord's table: The Lord be with you is what we say both when we greet you from the apse,8 and as often as we pray; because this is what we need, that the Lord should always be with us, because without him we are nothing. As for what sounded in your ears, notice what you say at God's altar. You see, we are somehow or other questioning you and admonish¬ ing you, and we say, Up with the heart. Don't put it down below; the heart rots in the earth; lift it up to heaven. But up with the heart, where to? What's your answer? Up with the heart, where to? We have it lifted up to the Lord. You see, this business of up with the heart is sometimes good, sometimes bad. How can it be bad? It's bad in those people of whom it is said, You cast them down, while they were exalting themselves (Ps 73:18). Up with the heart, if it isn't to the