According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. 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.”
First Holy Eucharist is celebrated by the Second Grade CRE class in the spring. In order to ensure your child’s success in the program, it is vital to attend Mass and CRE regularly.
In addition, preparation sessions for both children and parents will occur prior to the sacrament. These sessions serve two purposes:
1. To deepen parents’ understanding of the Eucharist; and
2. To provide ongoing home experiences that will assist the child at this age level to come to know Jesus through faith shared by others.
For Ascension parishioners or their loved ones who are sick or infirmed and who wish to receive Holy Communion, please contact Bill Fenton at (304) 206-0361.
The fourth cup is his sacrifice. In Gethsemane he prays to the Father three times about the cup of his death he must drink… “Let this cup pass from me” (Mt 26:36-46). It is not until he is about to die on the cross that he asks for the last cup, saying, “I thirst.” After he drinks from the sponge full of wine, he exclaims, “It is finished.” Jesus finished the Last Supper on the cross right before he died. Jesus interwove his own sacrifice into the Passover mystery, as the sacrificial lamb, to bring about the Passover of the Messiah for the salvation all.
The Mass is the New Passover. Jesus instituted a new Passover liturgy that was tied to his death. We eat the flesh of the new Passover lamb, Jesus himself, and drink his blood. It is the new covenant that brings about a new exodus, not from Egyptian slavery, but from the slavery of sin, and takes us to the Promised Land.
FOUR MAIN PRIESTLY VESTMENTS
Alb: white; symbolizing purity of heart
Cincture: “girdle:” symbolizing purity of the body
Stole: symbolizes priestly authority
Chasuble: “little house,” sleeveless; symbolizes charity
TRANSUBSTANTIATION The earliest text concerning the Real Presence is found in the eleventh chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, written probably about A.D. 57, or 27 years after Christ’s death and ten years before the Gospel of Mark is composed. Paul became a convert between four to seven years after the death of Christ. He was an eyewitness of the earliest Eucharistic celebrations.
1 Corinthians 11:23-29…
Paul and the first Christians knew that belief in the Eucharist demands faith. The body present in the Eucharist is that of Christ now reigning in heaven, the same body that died on the cross, but different because it has been transformed. It is this glorious body that is now, under the appearance of bread, given to us. Paul stresses this tradition throughout his letters.
Three of the Gospels–Matthew, Mark, and Luke–tell us what happened at the Last Supper. Although each has its own character, mode of writing, and details, it is the essential truth that matters.
The doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was believed throughout the centuries, but it was not until the 13th Century when Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the scholastic theologians, gave us the defining understanding of “transubstantiation.” Saint Thomas used the principle of “substance and accident” from the Greek philosopher Aristotle to explain transubstantiation.
Substance=making something what it is
Accident=the appearances of something (using sense knowledge)
By the consecration of the bread and wine a change takes place in which the whole substance of bread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. The Catholic Church calls this “transubstantiation.”
Transubstantiation is a substantial conversion. One thing is essentially converted into another thing.
Jesus’ words at the Last Supper “this is my body” indicated a complete change of the entire substance of bread into the entire substance of Christ. As soon as the sentence was complete, the substance of the bread was no longer present. Christ’s body was present under the outward appearances of bread. The accidents, or the appearances of bread, remain. It looks like bread; it tastes like bread; it smells like bread, and so on. However, the words of institution at the Last Supper are the words of transubstantiation.
At Mass the priest does exactly what Christ told him to do at the Last Supper. He does not say, “This is Christ’s body,” but “This is my body.” These words produce the whole substance of Christ’s body. In the same way the words of consecration produce the whole substance of Christ’s blood. They are Christ’s body and blood, as they are now living in heaven. The appearances of his human body are in heaven too. They are present, therefore, in the Holy Eucharist.
The entire substance of Christ is present in each consecrated host and in a chalice of consecrated wine.
When the priest at Mass, obeying Christ, speaks the words of consecration, the substance of bread and the substance of wine are changed by God’s power into the substance of Christ’s body and the substance of his blood. The change is entire. Nothing of the substance of bread remains, nothing of the substance of wine. Neither is annihilated; both are simply changed. However, the appearances of bread and wine remain. We know that by our senses. We can see, touch, and taste them. We digest them when we receive Communion. After the consecration they exist by God’s power.
The words of the enduring Catholic devotional book, Imitation of Christ: “We must beware of curious and useless searching into this most profound sacrament. He who scrutinizes majesty will be overwhelmed by its glory.”