Last Sunday's Topic - Mass and the Eucharist

Info from the handouts if you didn't get one last Sunday.

Oh and the answer to that one question that I didn't know...the word was "Hosannah".

Mass and the Eucharist

• The Eucharist is the Source and Summit of our Catholic Faith
• We need to receive in a state of grace every Sunday and as often as possible
• Just as we need food in daily life, we need the Eucharist. Christ was humble enough to make himself food.
• We see Christ under the accidents of Bread and Wine

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

28 A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

30 That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

31 If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment;

I Corinthians 11:26-31

• The Eucharist sets us apart - God is physically in our Church all the time because of the Eucharist.
• When we come to Mass we come to the heavenly banquet where heaven kisses earth at consecration
• The priest is in Persona Christi when he consecrates the host
• Jesus and the sacrifice he made are outside of time. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8) The sacrifice once for all. No re-sacrificing at mass

• We are not cannibals
• "When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now," -Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
• In the Hebrew prophecies they said that the Messiah would be a Priest “after the order of Melchizedek” -> sacrifice under bread and wine was required for the prophecy -> bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood -> body and blood are then sacrificed on the cross -> prophecy is fulfilled in Christ’s sacrifice in the cross -> the prophecy is then also fulfilled at every mass said by every priest in all time, everywhere
• The Holy Mass and it’s beginnings in the early Church are evidenced by the Didache (A.D. 70 the Apostle John was still alive.) written in New Testament times. It gives the instructions for mass!!

Helpful quotes:

“At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the centuries until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” – Sacrosanctum Concilium 47 Pope Paul VI

John 6:48-70

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.

51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. 52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. 53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.

56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. 58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever. 60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.

61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? 62 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? 63 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. 65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him.

66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. 67 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. 68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? 69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 70 And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.

Christ didn’t back down and try to re-explain things. He meant what he said. The Eucharist is HIM - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Click for more info on
How to Defend Christ's Presence in the Eucharist


And... lastly, a video you might find cool.