211 IN THE EUCHARIST WE RECEIVE THE BODY OF CHRIST

YOUCAT Lesson 211

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

211  How important is the Eucharist for the Church?

The celebration of the Eucharist is the heart of the Christian communion.  In it the Church becomes Church. [1325]

Painting: .....The Institution of the Eucharist by Nicolas Poussin. .....211

We are not Church because we get along well, or because we happen to end up in the same parish community, but rather because in the Eucharist we receive the Body of Christ and are increasingly being transformed into the Body of Christ.  126, 217

“Not to go to communion is like someone dying of thirst beside a spring.”  St. John Vianney (1786-1859, Cure of Ars)

THE EUCHARIST - SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF ECCLESIAL LIFE

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."(Congregation of Rites, instruction, Eucharisticum mysterium, 6)¹³⁸ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition