Eucharist

The Sacrament of the Last Supper By: Salvador Dali, 1955

(Oil, Nat’l Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

In every way that the soul can desire to feed, she will find in the Most Holy Sacrament sweetness and consolation….Do you think that this most holy food isn’t nourishment for these bodies, and an excellent remedy even against bodily ailments?...If when He lived in this world, He healed the sick by the mere touch of His garments, what doubt is there but that He will perform miracles, since He is so intimately within us, if we have a lively faith; and that He will grant us what we ask of Him, while He is in our house?

~ St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

The Holy Eucharist is offered to us on our pilgrimage as food so that we do not faint on the path to the fatherland, especially at the time when, tired by a long journey, our forces are apt to wane…The Lord left his Body in the Eucharist as a pledge of heavenly beatitude.

~ “Comments on Aquinas’ O Sacrum Convivum”

St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621)

At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this 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 received, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us (Sacrosanctum Concilium, §47).

The other sacraments, as well as every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are linked with the Holy Eucharist are directed toward it. For the Most Blessed Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth, that is, Christ Himself, our Passover and living bread. Through His very flesh, made vital and vitalizing by the Holy Spirit, he offered life to men. They are thereby invited and led to offer themselves, their labors, and all created things together with Him (Presbyterorum Ordinis, §5).

The existence of the local or the universal Church would be unthinkable without the Eucharist. No Christian community can be built up unless it has its basis and center in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist (Presbyterorum Ordinis, §6).

There are ten names that are traditionally associated with this sacrament:

• We call it Eucharist because it is an act of thanking God for creation, salvation and sanctification.
• We name it the Last Supper because that is when Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
• We recall it as the Breaking of the Bread because that is what Jesus did in the upper room and how he revealed himself to the disciples at Emmaus (, and it was the phrase the early Christians used for Eucharist.
• We view it as the Eucharistic assembly since we celebrate it in community as a visible expression of the Church.
• We know it as the memorial of Christ’s Passion, death and Resurrection. Not just a memory of the past, but making it present by the power of the Spirit and the ministry of the priest.
• We celebrate it as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because it makes present the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
• We adore the Eucharist as the Most Blessed Sacrament, reserved in the tabernacle for our continued worship and devotion.
• We take the Eucharist as Holy Communion wherein we are untied to Christ and shaped by him into the Body of Christ, the Church.
• We witness Eucharist as Holy Mass a word that comes from the Latin “to send.” At the end of the Eucharist the priest sends us forth to love and serve the Lord and one another and do God’s will in our daily lives (CCC §1328-1332).

From the earliest days of the Church, we have accounts of Eucharistic celebrations. One of the most well known was recorded in 155 AD in a letter written by St. Justin Martyr to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius explaining what Christians did at the Eucharist. He described five essential parts of the celebration which are preserved to this day in the liturgy (cf. CCC §1345):

• The Gathering:

On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place.

• Liturgy of the Word:

The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits.

When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things.

Then we all rise together and offer prayers for ourselves…and for all others, wherever they may be, so that we may be found righteous by our life and actions, and faithful to the commandments, so as to obtain eternal salvation.

When the prayers are concluded we exchange the kiss.

• The Presentation of the Offerings:

Then someone brings the bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren.

• The Eucharistic Prayer:

He then takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks that we have been judged worthy of these gifts. 

When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all preset give voice to an acclamation by saying: “Amen.”

• Communion:

When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the “eucharisted” bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent.

Two-thousand years after this we written by St. Justin Martyr and all the elements of liturgy present in the second century are still present in the Catholic liturgy today.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus Christ, becomes really and truly present in the elements of bread and wine. “This presence is called real—by which is not intended to exclude other types of presence as they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence, by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present” (Paul VI, Mystery of Faith, 39). We honor and adore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament at Mass by genuflecting and bowing in His presence and by adoring Him when the Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle or exposed in a monstrance during Eucharistic Adoration.

Sacramental Preparation

Sacramental preparation for First Communion is conducted along with preparation for First Reconciliation for children who have reached the age of discretion (seven years old or above). They must be baptized and have gone through the appropriate training in the parish.

Please contact the parish office for more information regarding preparation for First Communion.

Eucharistic Adoration

Eucharistic Adoration is offered in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel on Thursdays from 9:00am-5:00pm and on Saturdays from 3:00pm-4:30pm.