Wednesday, July 25, 2012

279. What are the essential and necessary elements for celebrating the Eucharist?


279. What are the essential and necessary elements for celebrating the Eucharist?  

(Comp 279) The essential elements are wheat bread and grape wine.
“In brief”  
(CCC 1412) The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you.... This is the cup of my blood...."  
To deepen and explain  
(CCC 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 (Cf. Deut 8:3); their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing" (1 Cor 10:16) 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.
On reflection 
(CCC 1406) Jesus said: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever;… he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and…  abides in me, and I in him" Jn 6:51, 54, 56). (CCC 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 (Cf. Mt 14:13-21; 15:32-39). 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 (Cf. Jn 2:11; Mk 14:25).   

(Next question: In what way is the Eucharist a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ?)

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