The Sacrament

As you know, every Sacrament has what we call:

• matter (the part you can see);
• form (the form of words that goes with it);
• the inward gift (the part you cannot see); and
• the minister (the person by whom the Sacrament can be administered).

In the Eucharist:

• the matter is bread and wine;
• the form is the Eucharistic Prayer (Prayer of Consecration) containing the words Jesus himself used at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, “This is my Body…This is my Blood”;
• the inward gift is Our Lord’s Risen and Ascended Body and Blood as they are now in Heaven; and
• the minister must be a priest.  That is why, if no priest is available, then the Eucharist cannot be celebrated.

Parts of the Eucharist

In the next few weeks we shall be talking about the different parts of the Eucharist in some detail.  So for now we shall just look at the main parts as an overview.

The Gathering

The Eucharist begins with the Gathering which is an introduction to the whole service.  It includes prayers of penitence, the Gloria (except during Advent and Lent) and the Collect (Prayer) for the Day.

The Liturgy of the Word

This part is derived from the synagogue service which Jesus and his disciples attended in Palestine every Sabbath Day.  This consisted of prayers, readings from the Old Testament, psalms and sermon.  As the first Christians were Jews, they continued to attend the synagogue service to which they were accustomed, and so it was taken over by the Christian Church and made part of the Eucharist.

The Liturgy of the Word includes one or two readings from the Bible, the Gospel, the sermon, the Creed and Intercessions (prayers for others).