The Holy Eucharist is the second of the three sacraments that completes the Christian Initiation into the Catholic faith. Through this sacrament, we participate with the whole faith community of believers, the Church, in the Lord’s own sacrifice.
Eucharist derives from the Greek word meaning “thanksgiving”. It is the sacrament of the Precious Body and Blood of Christ in which he is present under the forms of bread and wine: Jesus giving himself to us as our food and drink for eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments.
Baptism of course is the most necessary sacrament; without Baptism we cannot get to heaven. Yet, despite all the wonderful things that Baptism and the other five sacraments accomplish in the soul, they still are but instruments of God for the giving of grace.
But the Holy Eucharist is not merely an instrument for the giving of grace—here is the actual Giver of grace Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord truly and personally present.
53 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink is blood, you do not have life within you. 54 Whoever feeds upon my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. 56 “Whoever feeds upon my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I dwell in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so whoever feeds upon me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and nevertheless died, the one who feeds upon this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-58)
At the Last Supper, the Lord instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of his body and blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross through the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to the Church a memorial of his death and resurrection which we are to make our own.
The Second Vatican Council reminds us that the Eucharist is “the source and summit” of Christian life in the Catholic Church and, as baptized members of Christ’s “priestly people”, we are called to offer ourselves with Christ on the paten and in the chalice of salvation.
We come to Mass to transcend our earthly bonds and physically experience Christ. His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity become tangibly present in our midst through the Holy Eucharist. We are there to assist the priest with our prayers and participation as he offers the Sacrifice of the Mass. We are there to serve, not to be served. Our reward is that we have the opportunity to share in the Real Presence and be nourished by His Body. Therefore, we must place Christ and His Church at the center of our lives and let everything radiate outwards from that. At the heart of this is Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
26 The Last Supper. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after he had pronounced the blessing, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take this and eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took a cup, and after offering thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from this, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28)
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ, and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction.” ― Saint Augustine
How is Christ really present in the Eucharist?
By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in the proclamation of God’s Word, in the Eucharistic assembly, in the person of the priest, but above all and 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.
The Real Presence of Jesus Christ endures in the consecrated elements even after the Mass is ended. Once Communion has been distributed, any remaining hosts are placed in the tabernacle. If any of the Precious Blood remains, it is reverently consumed. The hosts are reserved to provide Communion for the sick, Viaticum (Communion for the dying), and to allow the faithful to worship Christ in the reserved Sacrament and to pray in his presence. As a sign of adoration, Latin Catholics genuflect to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the tabernacle or genuflect or kneel when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for prayer. Eastern Catholics show their reverence by a profound bow rather than a genuflection: “It is for this reason the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the Church and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament” (CCC, no. 1379).
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.
The Eucharistic Liturgy contains the entire treasure of the Church since it makes present the Paschal Mystery, the central event of salvation. Eucharistic adoration and devotion flow from and lead to the Eucharistic Liturgy, the Mass.
The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1366)
“Go often to Holy Communion. Go very often! This is your one remedy.” ― Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
“We do not go to Holy Communion because we are good; we go to become good.” ― Saint John Bosco
“The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host.” ― Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Click to download the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
PRAYER. Lord, purify my conscience for the sake of the purest love. May the Church present to the world the witness of sincere love, so that all people may be drawn to the Holy Eucharist to learn the true meaning of good and evil, and discover here the fullness of love.
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