SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

What is the Eucharist?

The Eucharist is the very center and culmination of Catholic life. In every Mass, Christ is present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the form of bread and wine as well as present in each of us. In every Mass, his death becomes a present reality, offered as our sacrifice to God in a sacramental manner. At Mass, we offer Christ, our Passover sacrifice, to God, and we offer ourselves along with him. We then receive the risen Lord, our bread of life, in Holy Communion. In doing so, we enter into the very core of the paschal mystery of our salvation, the death and resurrection of Christ.

Eating the supper of the Lord, we span all time and "proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes" (Corinthians 11:26). Sharing this banquet of love, we become totally one body in him. At that moment, our future with God becomes a present reality. The oneness for which we are destined is both symbolized and made real in the meal we share. In the Mass, both past and future become really present in the mystery.

The sacrament of the Eucharist was entrusted by Christ to his bride, the Church, as spiritual nourishment and as a pledge of eternal life. The Church continues to receive this gift with faith and love.


Where is the Eucharist in the Bible?

The Lord Jesus, on the night before he suffered on the cross, shared one last meal with his disciples. During this meal our Savior instituted the sacrament of his Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages and to entrust to the Church a memorial of his death and resurrection. The Institution of the Eucharist is written down in the four Gospels below: 

• Matthew 26:26-30
• Mark 14:22-26
• Luke 22:14-20
• John 6:22-59 (The Bread of Life Discourse)

Why does Jesus give himself to us as food and drink?

Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment because he loves us. By eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we become united to the person of Christ through his humanity. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6:56). In being united to the humanity of Christ, we are at the same time united to his divinity. Our mortal and corruptible natures are transformed by being joined to the source of life.

Is the Eucharist a symbol?

The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols. When Christ said “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” the bread and wine are transubstantiated. Though the bread and wine appear the same to our human faculties, they are actually the real body and blood of Jesus.

What does it mean that Jesus is present in the Eucharist?

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in a wholly unique manner in the Eucharist. “This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present” (CCC, no. 1374, citing Pope Paul VI, Mystery of Faith, no. 39).

Since the Middle Ages, the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ has been called “transubstantiation.” This means that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. The appearances of bread and wine remain (color, shape, weight, chemical composition), but the underlying reality—that is, the substance—is now the Body and Blood of Christ.

With the passage of time, reverent reflection led the Church to enrich its Eucharistic devotion. Faith that Jesus is truly present in the Sacrament led believers to worship Christ dwelling with us permanently in the Sacrament. Wherever the Sacrament is, there is Christ, who is our Lord and our God. Such worship is expressed in many ways: in genuflection, in adoration of the Eucharist, and in the many forms of Eucharistic devotion that faith has nourished.