Liturgical Moment of the Week: The Eucharistic Prayer

By Fr. Brian+

While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples.

This paraphrase of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26 is the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer, also known as the canon of the Mass, the Great Thanksgiving, or the prayer of consecration. It’s one of the many things Jesus told us to do, and one of two Sacraments our church celebrates.

I find it interesting that there are so many things Jesus has told us to do, but we don’t do them, or we struggle to do them. But not communion. We love taking communion. Why is that?

If I could boil communion down to one phrase, it would be Jesus blessed it. We perceive communion/mass/Eucharist as a time where something special is happening to us. We are being blessed.

We want to be blessed, and so we obey Jesus’ words and participate in communion.

Let communion be a time where we learn to trust Jesus in all areas of our lives, and seek to obey him in everything. His presence in the communion is for our enjoyment and for our betterment.

As for me as a priest, praying the Eucharistic prayer, being used by God to transform the bread into the Body and the wine into the Blood, is perhaps the most humbling thing I’ll ever do. For me it is a holy moment, and sometimes I get lost in it, stumbling over the words, holding back a tear, cherishing God my Savior. And then I remember that I’m leading the church in this holy moment and I have to snap back into the mode of following the liturgy.

Jesus blessed it. Jesus blesses you.