Holy Eucharist
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
(John 6:53-58)
“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.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324)
The Sacrament of the Eucharist has its origin at the Last Supper when on the night Jesus was betrayed, he instituted the Eucharist Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of The Cross throughout the ages until he comes again. In this Sacrament, Jesus entrusts to his Church a memorial of his death and Resurrection in which Christ is consumed. The Eucharist is the summit of the Christian life.
At Mass, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Real Presence of Jesus, His Body and Blood become really present under the form of bread and wine. Through the Eucharist, each of us is nourished by Jesus. Our participation in Mass is a sign of our full initiation into the Church, the Body of Christ.