The Liturgy of the Eucharist

     It may be said that the very first Holy Mass was celebrated by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.  It was with His Apostles and other disciples on the night before His crucifixion that He instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
     Because they were all Jews, they had gathered to celebrate the Passover at that time they were in Jerusalem.  Following the tradition handed down from the first anniversary of the Passover event, Jesus and His Apostles shared the different foods symbolizing events of the deliverance of the Hebrews who had been enslaved by the Egyptians.  This meal or "seder" commemorates God's fulfillment of His promise to send a deliverer who would bring them to their own free land.  God accomplished this by sending Moses to the Hebrews and using him to display His awesome power.  After God made His final warning to the Egyptians, He prepared His chosen ones.  He told them to sacrifice lambs and use the blood to mark the doorposts of their homes.  He then sent the angel of death upon the Egyptians to smite their firstborn.  However, the angel "passed over" the homes marked with lamb's blood, thus harming no one inside.  The fearful Egyptians then let God's people go free.
     When Jesus finished the Passover meal with His Apostles and disciples, He then used bread and wine to start a new act of commemoration, which has become the principal act of worship in the Church.  At the Last Supper Jesus gave us the Eucharist for our salvation.  He offered bread and said, "This is My Body."  He offered wine and said, "This is My Blood."  Then Jesus said, "As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of Me."  The sacred presence of our Lord and Savior is manifested each time bread and wine are consecrated as Jesus had commanded.

     After the Church was established on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit had come from heaven to the Apostles, they continued the sacred ritual Jesus had started with them at the Last Supper.  The first churches were the homes of Christians as they gathered for worship and the receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ from the  Apostles.  As the Church grew and spread, this sacred act and solemn meal in remembrance of Christ changed and developed.  Different ceremonies or rites and new prayers were continually added to the Last Supper ritual originally commanded by Christ.  It has also been celebrated differently in the various regions where the Church has existed throughout its history.  The Last Supper ritual evolved into the Liturgy of the Eucharist and developed as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Even today the Mass varies among the churches, but the essential parts have remained intact and true to Christ in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
     As the Apostles did at the Last Supper with Jesus, we come together as God's chosen ones for a sacred act of commemoration.  However, we commemorate what God has done for us at the crucifixion and resurrection of His Son, instead of what He had done at the Passover.  We too commemorate God's fulfillment of His promise to send a deliverer, who will bring us to a "new land."  This time He sends Jesus as our savior.  He saves us from death caused, not by an angel, but by the consequence of our sins; He brings the faithful, not to a new place on earth, but to an eternal place in heaven.
     We who receive His Blood in the Eucharist are safe in Christ as the Hebrews were safe in their homes marked with lamb's blood.  We who receive His Body in the Eucharist are united in Christ and brought to the kingdom of God as the Hebrews were brought by Moses to their promised land.  When we faithfully receive the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we receive the saving grace of His sacrifice on the cross and the new life of His resurrection from the tomb.  By participating in the Holy Mass the faithful of Christ gather as the new chosen people of God, the Church, to take part in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ for our own sanctification and salvation.
     Our Liturgy of the Eucharist begins at this point in the Holy Mass.  The core elements of the Last Supper ritual of Jesus Christ are preserved in the three main parts of our Mass:  the Offertory, Canon and Communion.  We offer and bless bread and wine with thanksgiving during the Offertory as Jesus did at the Last Supper; we consecrate the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ during the Canon by repeating the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper; we share and receive His Body and Blood during Communion as Jesus shared Himself with the Apostles and disciples when they received the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

                                                                  ---Bishop A. D. Kopka

     At the conclusion of the Liturgy of the Word of God and before the Offertory, the celebrant stands behind the altar at the center, facing the congregation.  The altar is designed to look like a table.  On the front of it is the colored carving of the Last Supper with Christ at the center seated with His Apostles on one side of the table.  This depiction symbolizes that the congregation is seated on the other side of the table with Christ as the celebrant stands in the place of Jesus.