Holy Eucharist

• Jesus’ death was a sacrifice of love, the most profound self-giving for the sake of others.
• Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist completes one’s Christian Initiation. The Sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the Eucharistic Sacrifice are one single sacrifice.
• Sacrament of the Eucharist=His absolute love and faithfulness
• When we celebrate the Eucharist, we proclaim and are caught up in the one great event of sacrifice of Jesus in Calvary; hence, the Eucharistic Celebration is also called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Holy Mass is the Church's greatest prayer because in it, Jesus becomes present and offers Himself in love to the Father as He did on the Cross over 2,000 years ago
• The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is ONE and the SAME sacrifice as that offered on Calvary: the Victim offered to the Father is the same, Jesus Christ; the Priest who offers it is the same, Jesus Christ; and the purpose for which it is offered is the same: the salvation of mankind.
• The only DIFFERENCE is in the manner of offering. On the Cross, Jesus offered Himself in a BLOODY manner, which included His suffering and death. In the Holy Mass, He offers Himself in an UNBLOODY manner in bread and wine that became His Body and Blood.
• In the Eucharist, Christ is perpetuating His offering on the Cross throughout time.
• The Eucharist is the richest and most important act of worship in the Church because it expresses and contains all the essential goals of personal and communitarian worship, namely: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, atonement for sin, petitions for graces, and then offering of all that we have, do, and are.
• The solemn actions that Jesus made when He instituted the Eucharist during the Last Supper parallel the key solemn moments in the Liturgy, and their correlation to our faith journey.
•  Our mission is to be "bread" to others, just as Jesus became our Bread of Life, which nourishes our spiritual life.
• In the Holy Eucharist, not only are we given life by Jesus' Word, Body, and Blood; we also receive nourishment for our relationships with one another. The Holy Eucharist builds and strengthens the community.
• The general effects of this Sacrament are life-giving and community- building.
• Christ in the Eucharist becomes the source of life for humanity, the Bread of Life.
• The Church celebrates the Eucharist in the name of and as the sum total of its members, the Mystical Body of Christ.
• The Holy Eucharist is the only sacrament in which our Lord is personally contained, offered, and received.
• As the words of the Consecration are pronounced by the priest, the bread and wine become the very Body and Blood of the Sacrificed and Risen Christ. At Holy Communion, when God the Father invites His people to eat of the acceptable gift offered to Him, the faithful are privileged to receive the BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY of Jesus Christ under the appearances of ordinary bread and wine.
• Although the Holy Eucharist retains the appearances of bread and wine after the Consecration, they are no longer bread and wine; rather, the sacrament is the LIVING and RISEN Christ because the substance has been changed by divine power.
• In the Eucharist, we do not simply recall Jesus' death and resurrection, but actually unite ourselves to Him in the most intimate manner by receiving His Body and Blood in Holy Communion.
• The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament of Christ's love, for His sacrificial self-giving on Calvary was the culmination of a life totally devoted to loving the Father. It is THE sacrifice of the New Covenant - the Perfect Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Cross.
•  The Eucharist is a Memorial because it recalls, makes present, and affects the presence of Jesus' once-and-for-all sacrificial death on the Cross
• In the Eucharist, He gives us a way to make our imperfect offerings part of His perfect offering. Thus, when we participate in the sacrifice of the Mass, we offer God our efforts and promise to love one another as Christ loved us. Because of what Jesus did, we are forever in God's love.
• It is a generous gift of self and of loving commitment that brings fullness of life. Christ, the Bread of Life and the Word of God, is teaching us that the only way to live is to die to ourselves for others.
• The Eucharist gives meaning to our offering of self, for united with Christ's sacrifice, like Him we become bread-broken and shared so that others may live.
• The Eucharist is the foretaste, seed, pledge, and hope of the everlasting life of happiness with the Trinity and all the angels and saints. Thus, the Eucharist is the centerpiece of the seven ritual sacraments and the summit of the whole Christian life