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CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SECOND EDITION PART TWO THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
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CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SECOND EDITION PART TWO THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
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CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCHSECOND EDITION
PART TWO
THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
1322 The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the
dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by
Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the
Eucharist.
1323 "At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic
sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross
throughout the ages 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.'"135
I. THE EUCHARIST - SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF ECCLESIAL LIFE
1324 The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."136 "The other sacraments,
and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the
Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole
spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."137
1325 "The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine
life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the
culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to
Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit."138
1326 Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly
liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.139
,1327 In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is
attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."140
II. WHAT IS THIS SACRAMENT CALLED?
1328 The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give
it. Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called:
Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein141 and
eulogein142 recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim - especially during a meal - God's works:
creation, redemption, and sanctification.
1329 The Lord's Supper, because of its connection with the supper which the Lord took with his
disciples on the eve of his Passion and because it anticipates the wedding feast of the Lamb in
the heavenly Jerusalem.143
The Breaking of Bread, because Jesus used this rite, part of a Jewish meal, when as master of
the table he blessed and distributed the bread,144 above all at the Last Supper.145 It is by this
action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection,146 and it is this expression
that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies;147 by doing so they
signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and
form but one body in him.148
The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of
the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.149
1330 The memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection.
The Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes
the Church's offering. The terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, "sacrifice of praise," spiritual
sacrifice, pure and holy sacrifice are also used,150 since it completes and surpasses all the
sacrifices of the Old Covenant.
The Holy and Divine Liturgy, because the Church's whole liturgy finds its center and most
intense expression in the celebration of this sacrament; in the same sense we also call its
celebration the Sacred Mysteries. We speak of the Most Blessed Sacrament because it is the
Sacrament of sacraments. The Eucharistic species reserved in the tabernacle are designated by
this same name.
1331 Holy Communion, because by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us
sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body.151 We also call it: the holy things (ta hagia;
sancta)152 - the first meaning of the phrase "communion of saints" in the Apostles' Creed - the
bread of angels, bread from heaven, medicine of immortality,153 viaticum. . . .
1332 Holy Mass (Missa), because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished
concludes with the sending forth (missio) of the faithful, so that they may fulfill God's will in
their daily lives.
III. THE EUCHARIST IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
, The signs of bread and wine
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,154 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.155
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;156 their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's
faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing"157 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.158 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.159
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?"160 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?":161 the Lord's question echoes through the ages,
as a loving invitation to discover that only he has "the words of eternal life"162 and that to
receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.
The institution of the Eucharist
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.163 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."164
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