The Eucharist
The Eucharist
No life flourishes without food and drink. Thus, the Eucharist offers the Body and Blood of Jesus as food and drink for the spirit. As a ceremony, the Eucharist is both a meal that nourishes, as well as a sacrifice in which the death of Jesus is offered to the Father. The Eucharist is also the object of adoration among the faithful. Since the graces of all the other sacraments flow from the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Eucharist is considered the central sacrament of the Church.
TRULY PRESENT
The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."201 In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained."202 "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if 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."203
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1374