"Our faith and the eucharistic liturgy both have their source in the same event: Christ's gift of himself in the Paschal Mystery." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"If from the beginning Christians have celebrated the Eucharist and in a form whose substance has not changed despite the great diversity of times and liturgies, it is because we know ourselves to be bound by the command the Lord gave on the eve of his Passion: 'Do this in remembrance of me.'" Source: [...]
"The presentation of the offerings (the Offertory). Then, sometimes in procession, the bread and wine are brought to the altar; they will be offered by the priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice in which they will become his body and blood. It is the very action of Christ at the Last [...]
"When Jesus Christ instituted the Blessed Eucharist, it was in a room well furnished, to teach us how we ought to take care to adorn our soul’; with virtues in order to receive Him in Holy Communion. Let us thank Our Lord for this instruction." Source: St. John Vianney, The Meditations of the Curé [...]
"Just as the Church 'makes the Eucharist' so 'the Eucharist builds up' the Church; and this truth is closely bound up with the mystery of Holy Thursday. The Church was founded, as the new community of the People of God, in the apostolic community of those Twelve who, at the Last Supper, became partakers of [...]
"On the night before he died, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and at the same time established the priesthood of the New Covenant." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the [...]
"The institution of the Eucharist demonstrates how Jesus' death, for all its violence and absurdity, became in him a supreme act of love and mankind's definitive deliverance from evil." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"In instituting the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus anticipates and makes present the sacrifice of the Cross and the victory of the resurrection. At the same time, he reveals that he himself is the true sacrificial lamb." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"Because last words, chiefly such as are spoken by departing friends, are committed most deeply to memory; since then especially affection for friends is more enkindled, and the things which affect us most are impressed the deepest in the soul. Consequently, since, as Pope Alexander I says, 'among sacrifices there can be none greater [...]