"Our communities, when they celebrate the Eucharist, must become ever more conscious that the sacrifice of Christ is for all, and that the Eucharist thus compels all who believe in him to become 'bread that is broken' for others, and to work for the building of a more just and fraternal world." Source: Pope [...]
"O infinite love of my God, worthy of infinite love! And how couldst Thou, my Jesus, ever abase Thyself so far as, in order to dwell amongst men, and to unite Thyself to their hearts, to humble Thyself to such a point as to conceal Thyself under the species of bread?" Source: St. Alphonsus [...]
"Since Christ is sacramentally present under each of the species, communion under the species of bread alone makes it possible to receive all the fruit of Eucharistic grace. For pastoral reasons this manner of receiving communion has been legitimately established as the most common form in the Latin rite. But 'the sign of communion is [...]
"In His Eucharist, Jesus is the very essence of purity. He is so pure that He unites Himself to no body, not even to the substance of the bread, since He destroys it in order to take its place; nor even to the visible accidents, for He is united to them neither substantially nor personally. [...]
"From the very beginning Christians have brought, along with the bread and wine for the Eucharist, gifts to share with those in need. This custom of the collection, ever appropriate, is inspired by the example of Christ who became poor to make us rich." Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church #1351 [...]
"The devout Father Nieremberg says, that bread being a food which is consumed by eating, and which keeps when preserved for use, Jesus was pleased to dwell on earth under its species, that He might thus not only be consumed by uniting Himself to the souls of His lovers by the means of the Holy [...]
"Barley bread serves to denote the hardness of the Old Law; both on account of the hardness of the bread, and because, as Augustine says: 'The flour within the barley, wrapped up as it is within a most tenacious fibre, denotes either the Law itself, which was given in such manner as to be vested [...]
"In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the [...]
"Christ is contained in this sacrament, and He compares Himself to a grain of wheat, saying (Jn. 12:24): 'Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone.' Therefore bread from corn, i.e. wheaten bread, is the matter of this sacrament." Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica