Corpus Christi & the meaning of the Cross

It is the Solemnity of the birth of St. John the Baptist today.
Because of this my local Parish decided it would be a fitting day to expose the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar for Adoration.
"Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament" means to put a consecrated Host (also known as "Eucharist") in a "monstrance" on top of the Altar, and let "it" be adored by the congregation or whoever wishes to go pay Him a visit.
Now, you may have noticed that I used the words "it" and "Him" for that Host, as if the words were interchangeable.
I did this intentionally, because most people don't realize what they are saying when they are saying it, and I wanted to point this out in order to clarify who it actually is that we are adoring up there hidden away in the Tabernacle, or who it is we are adoring during Exposition of the Bl. Sacrament.
Clearly, "it" would refer to what we see with our human eyes: a thin wafer - a thing - , and is the term used by those who see only with those eyes, rather than with the eyes of faith, trust and spirit.
For well educated Catholics though, this consecrated Host/Eucharist is in reality Jesus Christ Himself: truly present in body, mind and soul, fully human and in all His glorious Divinity.

So now that we have that covered, let me continue with what I wanted to share with you today...

The following came to me during Adoration today, and I know that except for God giving me this grace, I would not have had this understanding or deep comprehension of the meaning of what I'm about to say.
I don't know how this will come out now that I am writing it down, but I hope that the Spirit of God may help me with this.
After telling a priest about this, it was confirmed to me that this is the truth what I am about to write.

I had the idea or thought, somewhat like an interior vision of sorts, that the cross that Jesus carried on His back on the day He was to be crucified, was in reality His Bride.
I literally "saw" a bride in a white wedding dress being carried on His back, and it was made clear to me that He (Jesus) had espoused Himself to the cross, therefore the cross was His bride.
Since this is a solemnity for John the Baptist, who came to baptize people with the waters of repentance, and Jesus willed Himself to baptized by him as well with those same waters, although he had no need for repenting anything (since he was without sin), this clearly shows that Jesus has indeed come to be espoused and united to those who were baptized with those waters....
Now, to continue this thought of Jesus being espoused to the cross and carrying it on his back and shoulders, hugging it tightly, weeping upon it, moaning because of it, enduring the pain of the splinters etching their way into His flesh (making it burn and cause Him great pain)..
...if He has espoused Himself to those people baptized in the waters of repentance,...
therefore: to those baptized in His Name...
and we are indeed the cross He has decided to carry and be married to, regardless of the splinters (our faults, sins, etc) that cause Him pain,
regardless of the heavy burden we may be to Him,
regardless of us being the tool which would cause Him torture in more ways than one,
What does this say about Him? And what does this say about us?

Our sins (the splinters of the wood) caused Him pain, and tore His flesh so it bled.
That blood then seeped into the very fibers of the splinters, -of the wood of the cross.

If you ever tried cleaning blood stains out of wood (for example if you accidently hit your finger with a hammer while doing woodwork) or have ever watched a liquid drop onto wood, you would know that although you can clean the surface of the wood, you can never fully remove the blood out of the wood (even with soapy water), because the wood has absorbed it.
Jesus knew this. He's the son of a carpenter, after all. (okay, little joke - but true!)
He didn't want to be removed from His spouse,  - the wooden cross
=> the Church/those baptized in His Name.
This is comforting, because this means that it is nearly impossible to be separated from Jesus, once He has claimed you as His own, and once you have taken part of receiving His Body and Blood in the form of the Eucharist/consecrated Host.
Going to Mass and receiving Jesus as the Beloved and Lover He is into our hearts, souls and bodies therefore is a very intimate experience, once you come to comprehend that He is indeed your Spouse, even though the world and your state of Life may suggest otherwise.

I think the only way not to be united with Him so intimately can only be due to the following:
perhaps you are a piece of that cross that He carried, but His Blood, tears or sweat never touched you....
nothing of His, therefore, seeped into you.
And yet, He did carry you, and you are still a tiny fiber of the whole cross, which connects you to all those who have been touched and marked by Him profoundly.
The only way to remove you from the whole, is to ask that you be cut off or extracted from the cross (this implies that it would be your choice, your free will).

This though would make you incredibly lonely and you are likely to get lost amidst all the dust on the ground.
Soon enough, you will then be trampled underfoot.

The better thing to do would be to ask that His blood, tears or sweat may also seep into you, so you may know your value, understand His Love, care and passion for you,
and so by this dew of either the one or other fluid of His, you may stay fresh and moist and therefore resistant to high temperatures and fires that may threaten your existence.

Although the wood of the wood of the cross may seem dead, it is alive.
So therefore, even though Jesus' suffering on, with and through the cross may seem a stupid idea for a person who hasn't been infused by His passion (--> someone who sees only with worldly eyes),
since it would seem that He wanted to die, rather than live,
in reality He wanted to live eternally....through His true presence (be it whether His blood, sweat, tears or scraped flesh pieces) intimately and inseparably united to us "wood pieces" or "splinters".

That is why Jesus said that "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." - Mark 8:34-35.

And although this would be a great explanation of the meaning of the wood of the cross for Holy Friday, this explanation came to me now: two days before the Solemnity and Feast of Corpus Christi - The Body and Blood of Christ.

Now, that would be a very huge cross for Him to lug around town, if He wanted to include all of us to be partakers of His passion.
He does actually want all of humanity to be able to be united with Him, but in order to do this, He took it up a notch in terms of intimacy, as if having His Blood (for example) run through the fibers of your being wouldn't already be enough...
Just as His blood seeped into the wood, never to be removed again, so was His sharing of the meal at the last Supper.
"Jesus said: " I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever." (John 6:53-58)

He's explaining this as He is preparing to share bread and wine with His disciples....the way I see it is this: He is effectively (though He's not directly telling them that He's going to be crucified) asking them to not just be infused with His Blood, tears and sweat, but to refresh  and seal that imprint He would leave on them by continuously nourishing it with His Substance and presence.

As a mark/stain on wood would get deeper and more intense, the more frequently the same substance seeps into that mark/stain, so it is when we receive Communion: we become more and more like Jesus, because we are accepting into our lives His real body and blood, soul and divinity.

Eventually you will no longer see the original color of the wood, though the shape may be the same, and the fibers may still remain intact....so it is with our bodies when we die in Communion with Christ, through the carrying of our cross (which in effect may be Jesus for us, since it is HIS blood, sweat, tears and body tissue which has seeped in the wood) and the sharing in His Body and Blood through receiving Communion --> our bodies will be the same, but transformed,  because of the seeping of Jesus' Body and Blood into our very own bodies and cells.
And this is how we manage to live.
Although we seem to be dying.

This had a great impact on me today, because I had an incredible experience when I was hospitalized for open-heart surgery almost three years ago: I had to be re-opened after the initial surgery due to a Haemotoma.
This must have happened around midnight.
Nobody told me that I had required a second surgery, because nobody wanted to upset me. I found out about all of this four days after it happened.
I was "conscious" in regards to me having recollection of what I said and did, about the third day after my surgery, which would have been a Sunday. Just like Jesus, it seems I went down into "darkness", in order to be resurrected on the third day.
And yet I knew something happened, because I remember feeling as if I was being pushed around, I felt my arms being stretched apart (as they would be if you were being crucified - or, in my case: probably getting my chest re-opened), and intense pain.
Next thing I know is that I heard some mumbling, though one word stuck out : "Mercy." I've always been a great advocate for the devotion to Divine Mercy and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so I was wondering if someone was praying for me.
Only recently did it sink in that maybe it was Jesus Himself...He is our ultimate intercessor.
Again, right after this, I see Jesus laying for me in the hospital bed, and I was up on His cross, and it was as if Jesus had taken my place for me, and I had taken His place up on the cross.
His heart, which bled from the wound He received, was mine, and my heart in turn, was His.

He took away the pain I was feeling, and I got a sense of His Peace, as our Hearts were beating as one, our blood having mingled, ...becoming one.
The physical pain was intense, but the Love I experienced and felt was so much greater.
Now this really made me aware of the fact that we are indeed the temples of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, it is important what we do with our bodies.

Now this is something I didn't ask the priest about whether or not this is doctrinally true, but I feel that it is:
Truly, He (Jesus) is our Spouse, regardless if you are married, single, a religious or priest in this world...in heaven nobody is married in the way the world would understand it, but rather we are all espoused to the Trinity in heaven, and through this Union and connection we are then espoused to each other. 

I'm sure there may be some rational medical explanations for me perceiving the events of that night like this, but I know with absolute certainty that if Jesus hadn't come through for me that night, I would not be sitting here right now writing this.
Certain things simply cannot be explained properly.

All of this is an act of Faith, Belief, Trust and Love.

And this is how we should approach Him when we think of receiving Him in Form of the Eucharist.

He is not just simply a piece of bread or a wafer or a sip of wine in a chalice.
He is true God and true human being, and this is truly His body and blood,
the one who gives us life,
the one who truly loves us, ....splinters and all. ;-)

XP