The Mass is not a private prayer of thine, such as you could say at home. Nor is it the public prayer of pious people. But it is the pure and perfect offering of the Son of God, in which you may take part. Duty demands that you shall "Do this" every Sunday, but love will bring you there on other days as well. The Son of Man will feed you with His Flesh and Blood ... all doubts and fears can be removed, all sins can be forgiven by the power of the Precious Blood ...

(Preface to the Service of Holy Communion taken from an old Prayer Book).

The Service of Holy Communion - Mass - Lord's Supper - Liturgy - Holy Eucharist ... by whatever name we call it, the common prayer of the family of Christ is a twofold act of worship. Evelyn Underhill described it thus and went on to write that we 'distort its character and give at best an impoverished adoration if we forget this and find all the significance of the service in the Communion with which it ends'.

Although there are two distinct movements within the service, they are inseparable one from the other. The first part of the service is the Ministry of the Word, which has its climax in the solemn reading of the Holy Gospel - the first disclosure of God to humankind. The gospels record the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Living Word of God. The second part of the service is the Ministry of Sacrament in which the Church presents before God the sacred mystery of Christ's sacrificial and saving offering of Himself on the Cross. The culmination of this is the offering of oblation and thanksgiving and the receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Bread and Wine.

In the act of celebrating Eucharist the Church celebrates the 'mystery of her being and that of each of her members ... From the human side the Eucharist is the representative action of the Communion of Saints ... from the Divine side it is the medium of that self-imparting of God which creates the Communion of Saints'. (Underhill)

What happens to the bread and wine when the priest prays the Great Thanksgiving over them? We present ordinary things to God, who transforms them and gives back to us things that are extraordinary. This is true not only of bread and wine we present at the Eucharist; God will take our ordinary lives, our ordinary gifts of time, talents and worldly goods and transform them as well.

There have been many diverging and dissenting views on the Real Presence of Christ in the Bread and Wine. Some say that the Bread and Wine actually become the physical Body and Blood of Christ; another view is that it is a symbolic presence. A parish priest from Darlinghurst in Sydney wrote that the bread and wine become Sacrament in the reception by the faithful. This was also the ultimate view expressed by Thomas Cranmer in the sixteenth century.

One of my former parish priests from the 1970's gave me a different view again. He invited me to think not so much on transubstantiation, ie the changing of bread and wine into Flesh and Blood, but to receive the Bread and Wine as the whole Person and Character  of Christ

Finally, a contribution from the author of a book I read some years ago. When asked to describe what happens to the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the author replied: "I do not know for certain, neither do I need to know - I only need to experience it".

Deacon Garry