eucharist | st agnes longsight

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St Agnes Birch-in-Rusholme with St John with St Cyprian Longsight
Church of England Diocese of Manchester

Eucharistic Devotion

What is the Eucharist?
The Holy Eucharist, Holy Communion, Lord’s Supper, or Mass, is the
central act of Christian worship, as the Incarnation, which it
commemorates and to which it responds, is the central Christian
belief.

The Eucharist was instituted by our Lord and is one the two principal
Sacraments ordained by him. Sacraments are outward and visible
signs of inward and spiritual graces. In the Eucharist the outward sign
is bread and wine. The thing signified is the Body and Blood of Christ
who himself has said, ‘This is My Body: this is My Blood’. The benefits
(or graces) are the strengthening and refreshing of our souls.

and wine are changed in some way by the act of consecration. The
result of the change effected by the consecration is commonly called
the Real Presence. This Real Presence of Christ is implied by
Scripture, and taught by the great teachers of the early Church,
(saints like Cyprian, Gregory, and Augustine – known as The
Fathers). They teach us that the living Christ is personally present,
and that we receive him when we receive the consecrated bread and
wine.

The Anglican churches traditionally reject the theory of
Transubstantiation (the theory that the substance of bread and wine
changes) as well as rejecting the theory that the Eucharist is only a
sign of a person’s Christian profession. The Anglican position is
simply that the Eucharist is a mystery which cannot be fully
understood. From Article 28: ‘The Supper of the Lord is not only a
sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one
to another, but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's
death:
insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the
same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ;
and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.’

Why Adoration, Procession & Benediction?
It has always been the custom of the Church to spend a time of
prayer and adoration after receiving the Sacrament. The Procession
and Adoration which forms part of the Corpus Christi and some other
services are an extension of that prayerful reflection. We remain in
the sacramental presence of Christ with thankfulness for the graces
received at this Eucharist, in communion with Christ and with one
another, and, in the words of the hymn, ‘lost in wonder, love and
praise’.

The procession becomes a public witness to this presence of Christ
in his Church and it is done with reverence, awe and solemnity so as
not to profane the Sacrament. (St Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 11
and the Church of England guards against this in Article 25 where we
are reminded that the Sacrament is for our use, our life and our
salvation, and not for spectacle or show.)

The act of Benediction is, as every act of Blessing is, an act of
Christ himself. Ordinarily at the end of each Eucharist the words of
Blessing are given by the priest as a bestowing of God’s blessing
and peace on to the faithful who, having received the Body and
Blood of our Lord, now leave the church to carry on Christ’s saving
work. In the silent act of Benediction, where the sign of the Cross is
made over the faithful, we receive a reminder of the healing, saving
and blessing power of Christ – the gifts of the Eucharist itself.

All this is not just a re-creation or a remembering of past events. It is
certainly not mere ritual, neither is it theatre. The Eucharist is a
liturgy; a work of the whole people of God. It is a drama alive with
reality and transforming power, for it is an act of worship where Christ
himself comes to us in Word and Sacrament in order to transform us
into his Body in the world.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
In the name of Christ. Amen!

The information above is taken from our Corpus Christi service leaflet
and might be helpful introduction to our Eucharistic Adoration
services.