July - Month Dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus
The Twenty+ Names of the Eucharist. How Many Do You Know?
Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash
What a treasure we have in the Eucharist! We are so blessed to have access to this wonderful gift. The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it.
I believe it would be very beneficial to spend time in prayer meditating on these different names. This way when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist our hearts will be more open to all of the blessings that Our Lord would like to give us through this wondrous sacrament! But in humility, we have to understand that, because the Eucharist is God, and therefore is infinite, we can never wrap our heads around it entirely. Our inability to perfectly understand it is why much of it remains a mystery to us. But we don't have to understand it completely to benefit from it so we come at it from different angels and we give these angels names.
Each name evokes certain aspects of it; the different ways that Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist and leads us in perfect worship of God. It is called:
1. EUCHARIST, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God.The very term Eucharist is derived from the Greek word eucharistein, which means “thanksgiving.”
2. 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.
3. THE BREAKING OF BREAD, because Jesus used this rite...when as master of the table he blessed and distributed the bread, above all at the Last Supper. It is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection, and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies; 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.
4. THE EUCHARISTIC ASSEMBLY (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.
5. THE MEMOIAL OF THE LORD'S PASSION AND RESURRECTION. It is not merely the recollection of past events but … they become in a certain way present and real.
6. THE HOLY SACRIFICE, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church's offering.
7. HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS, The Council of Trent taught that the Mass is the same as Calvary, "only the manner of offering being changed" from bloody to unbloody. Similarly Vatican II (On the Liturgy #10) said that the Mass is the renewal of the new covenant.
8. SACRIFICE OF PRAISE, because "two thousand years ago, Jesus, our Lord and God, descended from heaven to a defiled earth and consumed himself on the holy cross as eucharistia, the supreme sacrifice of praise. This offering, this eucharistia, never ceases, but rather continues on every altar throughout the world."
9. SPIRITUAL SACRIFICE
10. PURE AND HOLY SACRIFICE, since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant.
11. THE HOLY AND DIVINE LITURGY, because the Church's whole liturgy finds its center and most intense expression in the celebration of this sacrament.
12. THE CELEBRATION OF THE SACRED MYSTERIES, because in the Body of Christ the mystery of Christ is made manifest and all people, Gentile and Jew alike, are made "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel."
13. THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT, because it is the Sacrament of sacraments. The Eucharistic species reserved in the tabernacle are designated by this same name.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. HOLY THINGS
17. THE BREAD OF ANGELS
18. BREAD FROM HEAVEN
19. MEDICINE OF IMMORTALITY, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live forever in Jesus Christ because feeding on this medicine we can be strengthened to face our own trials and, God willing, pass through a happy death to the glory of the resurrection.
20. VIATICUM, is a term used for the reception of Holy Communion by a sick person on their deathbed. Viaticum is the Holy Eucharist received by those who are about to leave this earthly life and are preparing for the journey to eternal life.
Most of these were taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 1328-1332
Here are a few more that I thought of:
21. THE BODY, BLOOD, SOUL AND DIVINITY OF JESUS
22. STRENGTH/FOOD FOR THE JOURNEY - In 1Kings 19:7-8, we see a prefiguring of this:
And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: Arise, eat: for thou hast yet a great way to go. And he arose, and ate, and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb.
23. SACRED BANQUET in which we receive Christ and the pledge of glory is given to us!
24. THE DIVINE FLAME "at which apostles must light their lamp if they wish to inflame souls" (Mateo Crowley).
25. HOST OF SALVATION "that opens the doors of heaven and scatters our enemies" (Hymn, Verba Supernum).
26. GOOD SHEPHERD AND REAL BREAD "nourish us and defend us now and make us one day enjoy the true goods in the land of the living" (Sequence, Lauda Zion).
27. THE DIVINE CYRENEAN OF HUMANITY Simone of Cyrene carried the cross on his shoulders only because the soldiers forced him to do so. Instead, Jesus bore our sins with great joy, spurred on by infinite love. Jesus in the Eucharist continues to the Divine Cyrenean of humanity by making reparations for our sins and easing our pains.
28. FONT OF GRACE poured forth upon us (Constitution On the Sacred Liturgy).
29. SACRAMENT OF LOVE
30. SIGN OF UNITY
31. BOND OF CHARITY
32. PASCHAL BANQUET in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given us (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy).
33. THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS because in Eucharistic miracles, when the host visibly becomes human flesh and is scientifically tested, it is heart tissue.
34. SOURCE OF LIFE
35. LIVING BREAD
36. MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR
37. LOVE AND GIFT because in his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us (CCC).
Do you have any to add?
Follow this link to watch a short video on Meaning of the Mass: Source & Summit. It is excellent!
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About the Author
I am a daughter of the Most High and of His Catholic Church. I introduce myself that way because I am so grateful for that! I have been married to Dan for 36 years and we have three young adult children - Brett, Nicole and Eryn - and three grandchildren - Cash, Bowie and Indy. I was employed as the Adult Faith Formation Coordinator at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Peachtree City, Georgia for 14 years from December of 2008 to January of 2023. I earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theology from Catholic Distance University and a certificate as a Catholic Spiritual Mentor from the Catholic Spiritual Mentorship Program.
I left fulltime ministry in the parish to concentrate on organizing events. I would like to extend my outreach to other parishes and organizations who would like to host a wonderful Adult Faith formation event but might not have the experience or confidence to do that on their own. I offer various services including but not limited to (fees are charged hourly for most services):
+ Event Planning: event planning from start to finish,
+ Consultation: consultation about an event,
+ Consultation about running a successful Adult Faith Formation Program.
+ I also offer different Adult Faith classes and courses that can be accessed by an individual or a group or can be taught by me via zoom or locally in person.
Website https://www.catholiceventplanning.com/ or www.redemptivesuffering.net
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