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Sacrament:Holy Eucharist
Scripture Text
Content• What is the Holy Eucharist?• When was the Holy Eucharist instituted?• How was the Holy Eucharist instituted?• What link has the Eucharist with the Old
Testament?• How is Christ present in the Holy Eucharist?• Why do we need the Holy Eucharist?• How the celebration of the Eucharist
developed?• Q & A
What is the Holy Eucharist?
What is Holy Eucharist?• The word Eucharist strictly means pleasing, and
this Sacrament is so called because it renders us most pleasing to God by the grace it imparts, and it gives us the best means of thanking Him for all His blessings.
• The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen gentium #11).
• Since the Christian life is essentially a “spiritual” life, we might say as well that the Eucharist is the "source and summit of Christian spirituality" too.
What is Holy Eucharist?• To say the Eucharist is the "source and summit
of Christian spirituality" means at least two things…
• First, that Christian spirituality flows from the Eucharist as its source, the way light streams forth from the sun.
• Second, that Christian spirituality is supremely realized in and ordered to the Eucharist as its summit or high-point-that to which all of our actions should ultimately be directed.
What is Holy Eucharist?• The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament and a
sacrifice.
• Holy Eucharist is the sacrament in which Jesus Christ gives his Body and Blood for us so that we too might give ourselves to him….. In this way we are joined with the one Body of Christ.
• After Baptism and Confirmation, the Eucharist is the third sacrament of initiation of the Catholic Church.
What is Holy Eucharist?• 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…
What is Holy Eucharist?• 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.
• 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.
What is Holy Eucharist?• 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
What is Holy Eucharist?• The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because
the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.
• The memorial of the Lord.
• The Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Saviour and includes the Church's offering. It is used since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant's Passion and Resurrection.
What is Holy Eucharist?• 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.
• 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.
When was the Holy Eucharist instituted?
When Instituted?• Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist on the
evening before his death, “on the night when he was betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23), when he gathered the Apostles around him in the Upper Room in Jerusalem and celebrated the Last Supper with them.
When Instituted?• 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 fulfils the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.
How was the Holy Eucharist instituted?
How Was It Instituted?• “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered
to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the chalice, after supper, saying, ‘This chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” ( 1 Cor 11:23-25).
(This, the oldest account of the events in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, is by the Apostle Paul, who was not an eyewitness himself, but rather wrote down what was being preserved as a holy mystery by the young Christian community and was being celebrated in the liturgy.)
What link has the Eucharist with the Old
Testament?
Eucharist & Passover• The Passover is central to the Jewish faith, identity
and relation with Yahweh. Throughout their history, the Jewish people have celebrated this religious event through the ritual of Passover.
• Since Jesus was Jewish, he was well aware of the Jewish custom of the Passover which he wanted to celebrate with his disciples (to call in mind something and re-live it; To enter not only into the thought of the past, but also into the actuality of what happened).
Eucharist & Passover• The Last Supper was not a Passover (in a
strict sense), but it had its characteristic… meal, remembrance, sacrifice, the new coveant.
• During the Last Supper, after blessing and giving the bread – his body and the cup of wine – his blood, Jesus has told to his disciples "do this in memory of me."
How is Christ present in the Holy
Eucharist?
How is Christ present?• In the Church's traditional theological language,
in the act of consecration during the Eucharist the "substance" of the bread and wine is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the "substance" of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the "accidents" or appearances of bread and wine remain.
• In order for the whole Christ to be present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—the bread and wine cannot remain, but must give way so that his glorified Body and Blood may be present.
How is Christ present?• "Substance" and "accident" are here used as
philosophical terms that have been adapted by great medieval theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas in their efforts to understand and explain the faith.
• Such terms are used to convey the fact that what appears to be bread and wine in every way (at the level of "accidents" or physical attributes - that is, what can be seen, touched, tasted, or measured) in fact is now the Body and Blood of Christ (at the level of "substance" or deepest reality).
How is Christ present?• Through the consecration of the bread and
wine, there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change is called transubstantiation.
Why do we need the Holy Eucharist?
Why Holy Eucharist?• Jesus celebrated the Last Supper (Mt 26: 17-
30; Lk 22: 7-38) with his disciples and therein anticipated his death.
• He gave himself to his disciples under the signs of bread and wine and commanded them from then on, even after his death, to celebrate the Eucharist… “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24).
Why Holy Eucharist?• The celebration of the Eucharist is the heart
of the Christian communion. In it the Church becomes Church… as we receive the Body of Christ, w are being transformed into the Body of Christ.
• The Eucharist is also a sacramental sign that embodies thanksgiving, memorial and presence.
Why Holy Eucharist?• Thanksgiving: 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."
Why Holy Eucharist?• Memorial: The Eucharist is the memorial of
Christ's Passover. The memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made present the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.
Why Holy Eucharist?• Presence: It is by the conversion of the
bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts.
Why Holy Eucharist?• The Holy Eucharist is also the ‘pledge of the
glory to come”. we celebrate the Eucharist "awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ," asking "to share in your glory… when we shall see you, our God, as you are.
How the celebration of the Eucharist
developed?
The Development• Apart from the Last Supper, Jesus’ appearances
to his disciples were often in the context of a meal…
“Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread (Lk 24:35).
The Development• The disciples began to celebrate the
Eucharist (‘the Breaking of Bread’) very soon after Pentecost. Immediately after he tells us about the coming of the Holy Spirit and Peter’s preaching to the people, Luke writes,
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).
The Development• As the good news spread beyond the borders
of Israel, there were Gentile converts and these too remembered Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Breaking of Bread. Luke tells us of Paul at Troas: ‘On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread … ‘(Acts 20:7–12)
The Development• The Eucharist that we celebrate now has
gone through a process of ‘evolution’. Starting from merely Jewish roots, it has evolved to the structure that we have… (1) Opening Rites; (2) Liturgy of the Word; (3) Liturgy of the Eucharist; (4) Concluding Rites & Sending forth.