The Luke E. Hart Series
By Peter Kreeft
Basic Elements of the Catholic Faith
The Eucharist: Its Importance
The sacraments are the crown of the
Catholic Faith, and the Eucharist is the crown
of the sacraments. Why are the sacraments the
crown of the Faith? Because the God we believe in the Creeds and obey in the Commandments, we meet and receive in the sacraments.
Why is the Eucharist the greatest of the sacraments? Because “‘… in the blessed Eucharist
is contained the whole spiritual good of the
Church, namely Christ himself…’”135 (CCC
1324). The Catechism says that “the Eucharist
is ‘the source and summit of the Christian
life’”134 (CCC 1324). Why? Because the Eucharist is both the origin and the end of that
supernatural reality which is the point of everything in the Catholic religion. That reality,
called by many different names, such as
“salvation,” “eternal life,” “sanctifying grace,”
“the Kingdom of God,” and “the Christian
life,” consists in participating in the very life
of God. The Eucharist is the origin of that because it does more than merely symbolize that:
it actually gives us that.
And the Eucharist is the culmination of
that, of the Christian life, of man’s life in relation to God, because it is the culmination of
God’s life in relation to man, at least while we
are on this earth. It is both the greatest thing
God does to man and the greatest thing man
does to God. “‘The Eucharist… 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’”136 (CCC 1325).
*CCC= Catechism of the Catholic Church
