As the bread and wine which we do eat be turned into our flesh and blood, and be made our very flesh and very blood, and so be joined and mixed with our flesh and blood, that they be made one whole body together; even so be all faithful Christians spiritually turned into the body of Christ, and so be joined into Christ, and also together among themselves, that they do make but one mystical body of Christ, as St Paul saith: (1 Cor x.) ‘We be one bread and one body, as many as be partakers of one bread and one cup.’
What, then, can be more comfortable to us that to eat this meat, and drink this drink? whereby Christ certifieth us, that we be spiritually, and truly, fed and nourished by him, and that we dwell in him, and he in us. Can this be shewed unto us more plainly, than when he saith himself, ‘He that eateth me shall live by me?’ (John xi.)
Thomas Cranmer, from the First Book of the Sacrament. Love’s Redeeming Work. Oxford, 2001. 31-32.
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