The Eucharist ... an
inexhaustible mystery
What the Catechism of the
catholic church says about the blessed eucharist
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Sacrament of Initiation |
1322 The holy Eucharist
completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of
the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by
Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord's own
sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. |
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Source and summit of the Christian
life |
1324 The Eucharist is "the
source and summit of the Christian life." "The other sacraments, and indeed
all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with
the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is
contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our
Pasch." |
|
Eucharist |
1328 The inexhaustible
richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it.
Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called: Eucharist, because it
is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words
eucharistein and eulogein recall the Jewish blessings that
proclaim - especially during a meal - God's works: creation, redemption, and
sanctification. |
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Lord's Supper |
1329 The Lord's Supper,
because of its connection with the supper which the Lord took with his
disciples on the eve of his Passion and because it anticipates the wedding
feast of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem. The Breaking of Bread,
because Jesus used this rite, part of a Jewish meat when as master of the
table he blessed and distributed the bread, above all at the Last Supper. It
is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his
Resurrection, and it is this expression that the first Christians will use
to designate their Eucharistic assemblies; by doing so they signified that
all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and
form but one body in him. The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis),
because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the
visible expression of the Church)
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Wedding Feast of the Lamb |
1335
The miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the
blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his disciples to feed
the multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his
Eucharist. The sign of water turned into wine at Cana already announces the
Hour of Jesus' glorification. It makes manifest the fulfillment of the
wedding feast in the Father's kingdom, where the faithful will drink the new
wine that has become the Blood of Christ.
Also see 1329, above |
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Breaking of the Bread |
see 1329, above |
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Eucharistic assembly |
see 1329, above |
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Memorial of the Lord's passion,
death and resurrection |
1330 The
memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection. The Holy Sacrifice,
because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes
the Church's offering. The terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, "sacrifice
of praise," spiritual sacrifice, pure and holy sacrifice are also used,
since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant. The
Holy and Divine Liturgy, because the Church's whole liturgy finds
its center and most intense expression in the celebration of this sacrament;
in the same sense we also call its celebration the Sacred Mysteries.
We speak of the Most Blessed Sacrament because it is the Sacrament
of sacraments. The Eucharistic species reserved in the tabernacle are
designated by this same name. The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's
Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique
sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the
Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called
the anamnesis or memorial.
|
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Holy Sacrifice/ Sacrifice of praise
and thanksgiving |
see 1330
above;
1360 The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a
blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his
benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and
sanctification. Eucharist means first of all "thanksgiving." |
|
Holy and Divine Liturgy |
see 1330
above |
|
Sacred Mysteries |
see 1330
above |
|
Most Blessed Sacrament |
see 1330
above |
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Holy Communion/Holy Things/Brad of
Angels |
1331 Holy Communion,
because by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers
in his Body and Blood to form a single body. We also call it: the holy
things (ta hagia; sancta) - the first meaning of the phrase "communion
of saints" in the Apostles' Creed - the bread of angels, bread from
heaven, medicine of immortality, viaticum. |
|
Holy Mass |
1332 Holy Mass (Missa),
because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished
concludes with the sending forth (missio) of the faithful, so that
they may fulfill God's will in their daily lives. |
|
Sacramental Sacrifice:
Thanksgiving, Memorial, Presence |
1356 If from the beginning
Christians have celebrated the Eucharist and in a form whose substance has
not changed despite the great diversity of times and liturgies, it is
because we know ourselves to be bound by the command the Lord gave on the
eve of his Passion: "Do this in remembrance of me" |
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Paschal Banquet/ New Passover |
1340 By celebrating the Last
Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the
Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by
his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper
and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and
anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.
1382
The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in
which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of
communion with the Lord's body and blood. But the celebration of the
Eucharistic sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the
faithful with Christ through communion. To receive communion is to receive
Christ himself who has offered himself for us. |
|
New Covenant |
1333 At the heart of the
Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ
and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood.
Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and
until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took
bread. . . ." "He took the cup filled with wine. . . ." The signs of bread
and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of
Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the
Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine, fruit of the
"work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the
vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the
king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of
her own offering.
1334 In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among
the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the
Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the
Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover
commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the
remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it
lives by the bread of the Word of God; their daily bread is the fruit of the
promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of
blessing" at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of
wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the
rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new
and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup. |
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Pledge of the Glory to come |
1344 Thus from celebration
to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of Jesus "until he
comes," the pilgrim People of God advances, "following the narrow way of the
cross," toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at
the table of the kingdom.
1402 In an ancient prayer the Church acclaims the mystery of the
Eucharist: "O sacred banquet in which Christ is received as food, the memory
of his Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with grace and a pledge of the
life to come is given to us." If the Eucharist is the memorial of the
Passover of the Lord Jesus, if by our communion at the altar we are filled
"with every heavenly blessing and grace," then the Eucharist is also an
anticipation of the heavenly glory. |
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Viaticum |
see 1331 and 1524 In addition to the Anointing of
the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the
Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received
at this moment of "passing over" to the Father, has a particular
significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of
resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: "He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the
sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father.
1525
Thus, just as the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist
form a unity called "the sacraments of Christian initiation," so too it can
be said that Penance, the Anointing of the Sick and the Eucharist as
viaticum constitute at the end of Christian life "the sacraments that
prepare for our heavenly homeland" or the sacraments that complete the
earthly pilgrimage. |
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