as parts of Christ

It's Holy Thursday. I've subscribed to a daily email during Lent from three women called Liturgical Reflections, and the following was one of the meditations:

"After Jesus had died on the cross, his disciples hoped to keep his body with them as a sacred relic. They shut it in with stone. The came to embalm it. St. Magdalene was disconsolate that she could not find it. But Jesus had given his body to them at the Supper in the form in which he meant them to have it, a form which did not involve its being stored on earth. He would continually give it them from heaven, where he lives. It is a heavenly being he bestows on us, it is in his heavenly body that he unites us. Lift up your hearts; by this sacrament, you are parts of Christ, and Christ is the heart of heaven."

                                                                         -  Austin Farrer   (emphasis mine)

This is the best explanation I've read about the Eucharist.