Why the Eucharist?

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

What is the purpose of the Eucharist?

The bread, the wine, the eating, the drinking etc… Are they just co-incidental or arbitrary actions that Jesus chose, or is there something more significant to it?

 

[Catholicc]

What is the purpose of the Eucharist?

The bread, the wine, the eating, the drinking etc… Are they just co-incidental or arbitrary actions that Jesus chose, or is there something more significant to it?

In the Old Testament, the Passover lamb had to be eaten as part of the Passover celebration.

Christ fullfilled this Old Testament “type” which had pointed to him. Christ is the “Lamb of God” - the new Passover sacrafice. He perfected the Passover by giving us an un-bloody manner in which to receive the Passover lamb, but turning the bread and wine into his body and blood.

This is why, in John 6: 53-56, Jesus says “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” What is notable about this is that this event comes right after the multiplication of the loaves, when Jesus feeds the multitudes with only a couple of loaves of BREAD, and then there are twelve baskets left over. This symbolizes the fact that the twelve apostles will always have plenty of the bread of life to give to all disciples.

That is a very brief explanation. Probably not the best, but you get the idea.

 

[VociMike]

Just a couple of thoughts - not a full answer by any means.

1. The use of bread and wine is significant, because they are both made by man, using ingredients supplied by God. This is symbolic of the cooperation with God’s saving work that he calls us to. Like any good father, God wants us to work with him in his good work.
2. Eating and drinking is not how we gain life, but it is how we sustain life. So it is that in Christianity, we gain spiritual life by repentance and baptism, and we sustain spiritual life by eating and drinking that which provides spiritual nourishment, our Savior. Remember the old saying, you are what you eat. And our goal is to become perfect and holy as God is perfect and holy.
3. Jesus gives himself to us in the form of bread and wine, because the Incarnation is an everlasting reality, not just a 33 year one. Jesus cannot fully abide in us if he does not abide in us in his fullness, which includes his body and blood and soul, as well as his divinity. Because we are corporeal beings, and Jesus is now a corporeal being, to interact fully we must interact in a material, corporeal fashion.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Good answers already. Also, the sign of bread has great depth as the image of the Church.

And what do those who receive it become? The Body of Christ – not many bodies but one body. For as bread is completely one, though made of up many grains of wheat, and these, albeit unseen, remain nonetheless present, in such a way that their difference is not apparent since they have been made a perfect whole, so too are we mutually joined to one another and together united with Christ. - Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #23.