"Our holy faith teaches us, and we are bound to believe, that in the consecrated Host, Jesus Christ is really present under the species of bread. But we must also under stand that He is thus present on our altars as on a throne of love and mercy, to dispense graces, and there to show [...]
"The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist." -Catechism of the Catholic Church
"At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it." -Pope St. John Paul II
"We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God’s own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us." -Pope Benedict XVI
"The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it. Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called:ÿ Eucharist, The Lord's Supper, TheÿBreaking of Bread, TheÿEucharistic assembly, Theÿmemorialÿof the Lord's Passion and Resurrection, TheÿHoly Sacrifice, holy sacrifice of the Mass, "sacrifice of praise," spiritual sacrifice, pure and holy [...]
"The Church's faith is essentially a eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
This is a wonderful quote from St. Peter Julian Eymard. He describes the gift of the Father of His Son in the Eucharist given to us. The saint describes this as a personal gift provided to him, and it is a person and individual gift given to him. This does not negate the gift given [...]
"Certainly amongst all devotions, after that of receiving the Sacraments, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament holds the first place, is the most pleasing to God, and the most useful to ourselves. Be not then loth, devout soul, now to begin; and forsaking the conversation of men, dwell each day, from this time [...]
"For when he says in another book which is called Ecclesiastes, 'There is no good for a man, except that he should eat and drink,' what can he be more credibly understood to say, than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament Himself, the Priest after the [...]
"I wish here to endorse the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers by encouraging the Christian people to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the eucharistic mystery, the liturgical action, and the new spiritual worship which derives from the Eucharist as the sacrament of charity." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of [...]