THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION 2008 

36 Children have just made their 1st Holy Communion on Saturday 14th June at St. Begh's

The next preparation course will begin in October for children in Year 3 or above at primary school. Information will be distributed via St. Begh'school and also via the parish newsletter.

Attendance at Sunday mass is an essentail part of our parish preparation course, preparation sessions will take place after the 10.00am Sunday mass, with the 1st communion service taking place on a Saturday in June. There will eb 11 sessions of prpearation and meetings with parents. The 1st confessions will take place during advent.

  What does the Church Teach?

1322 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.

1323 "At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'"¹³⁵

I. THE EUCHARIST - SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF ECCLESIAL LIFE

1324 The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."¹³⁶ "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."¹³⁷

1325 "The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit."¹³⁸

Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.¹³⁹

1327 In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."¹⁴⁰