Today we will look
at what the Catechism says about the use of bread and wine, the heart of the
Eucharist. These few selections from a large entry on this topic will show the
connection to the Old Testament, in particular to the Passover, and to New
Testament events such as the feeding of the crowd, and the changing of water
into wine at Cana. Read, believe, and give thanks, for the word Eucharist means
“thanksgiving.”
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.
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.
1336 The
first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the
announcement of the Passion scandalized them: "This is a hard saying; who
can listen to it?" The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks.
It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division.
"Will you also go away?" the Lord's question echoes through the
ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has "the words of
eternal life” and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to
receive the Lord himself.
1337 The Lord, having loved those
who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to
leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed
their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a
pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them
sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his
death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his
return; "thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament."
1338 The three synoptic
Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the institution of the
Eucharist; St. John, for his part, reports the words of Jesus in the synagogue
of Capernaum that prepare for the institution of the Eucharist: Christ calls
himself the bread of life, come down from heaven.
1339 Jesus
chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum:
giving his disciples his Body and his Blood:
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover
lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and
prepare the Passover meal for us, that we may eat it. . . ."
They went . . . and prepared the Passover. And when the hour came, he
sat at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, "I have
earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you
I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.".
. . . And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and
gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this
in remembrance of me." And likewise the cup after supper, saying,
"This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my
blood."
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.
1341 The command of Jesus to
repeat his actions and words "until he comes" does not only ask us to
remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration,
by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of
Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession
in the presence of the Father.
1342 From
the beginning the Church has been faithful to the Lord's command. Of the Church
of Jerusalem it is written:
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . . Day by
day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they
partook of food with glad and generous hearts.
1343 It
was above all on "the first day of the week," Sunday, the day of
Jesus' resurrection that the Christians met "to break bread." From
that time on down to our own day the celebration of the Eucharist has been
continued so that today we encounter it everywhere in the Church with the same
fundamental structure. It remains the center of the Church's life.
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.
Sweet Sacrament,
We Thee Adore
Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all!
How can I love Thee as I ought?
And how revere this wondrous gift,
So far surpassing hope or thought?
Refrain:
Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore!
Oh, make us love Thee more and more.
Oh, make us love Thee more and more.
2. Had I but Mary's sinless heart
With which to love Thee, dearest King,
Oh, with what ever fervent praise,
Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!
Refrain
3. Thy Body, Soul and Godhead, all!
O mystery of love divine!
I cannot compass all I have,
For all Thou hast and art is mine!
Refrain
4. Sound, then, His praises higher still,
And come, ye angels, to our aid;
For this is God, the very God
Who hath both men and angels made!
Refrain (William Faber, an English convert to Catholicism)
How can I love Thee as I ought?
And how revere this wondrous gift,
So far surpassing hope or thought?
Refrain:
Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore!
Oh, make us love Thee more and more.
Oh, make us love Thee more and more.
2. Had I but Mary's sinless heart
With which to love Thee, dearest King,
Oh, with what ever fervent praise,
Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing!
Refrain
3. Thy Body, Soul and Godhead, all!
O mystery of love divine!
I cannot compass all I have,
For all Thou hast and art is mine!
Refrain
4. Sound, then, His praises higher still,
And come, ye angels, to our aid;
For this is God, the very God
Who hath both men and angels made!
Refrain (William Faber, an English convert to Catholicism)
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