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).
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