The Eucharist

At the last supper Jesus was celebrating the Passover meal which is a Jewish celebration, he offered himself up and sacrificed himself in order for us to be saved. He said:

"This is my body which is for you do this in memory of me" (Cor 11:24-25)

Jesus is called the Lamb of God because Jesus sacrificed the lamb when they were escaping from Egypt and put the blood on the door to save them. Jesus now states that he will have to be sacrificed for us. We attend mass in remembrance of this sacrifice and believe that Jesus told us to,

"Do this in memory of me"

Whenever we take part in the Eucharist we are making a covenant with god and because of this god will give us eternal life.

Through celebrating the mass we come together as a community. We unite as a community when we stand up and say 'our father', where we ask for forgiveness from each other. Whenever we pray for each other through the bidding prayers we show our strength in the community. At the making of the sign of peace we make a peace offering as a celebration of unity. This fellowship was very important in the early church as St Paul wrote:

"Because there is one loaf, we who are many, are one body, for we all partake of one loaf"

In the collection after mass we offer our wealth to St Vincent De Paul therefore helping those not so well off in our community, again living out what Jesus asked us to do.

Suggest how a Roman Catholic lives this out.

Catholics do many things to live this out in their lives. At the end of mass we are told to go out and love and serve others. There we a re challenged by god to go out and live as true Christians. People can do this by going out into the community and taking notice of the poor people and sick people. They then set aside a time in the week where they go and visit these people and check that they are comfortable and this gives those people a sense of spiritual healing because they now know someone cares for them.

To live out the Eucharist you must love others around you, this means forgiving anyone who has hurt you or done something which you would consider to be hurtful. Catholics should not bear grudges against anyone because of what they done or their religion status in society. A good example of people who do this are those people who go out on missionaries and help those people in Afghanistan whose political leaders have bombed innocent people. They care for the young children who have been orphans because of Americans retaliating and bombing their country.

If you want to live out the Eucharist you must sacrifice for others. You should not think of your life as being more important than anyone else's because god made us all as equals. An example of this is those people who would give their seat at mass to an elderly person before they would take the last seat. The type of person who donates part of their weekly wage to the parish collection or those who make time to listen to their friends and any problems they may have in life. This is sacrificing good hard-earned money which could go towards paying off their mortgage but instead donate it to the parish to make sure it stays I in a good financial state or the money goes to St Vincent De Paul to help the poor which we see every day and never even spare a moment to think about them.

Everyone must support one another in order to live the Eucharist out this means helping people through hard-times in their life and keeping an eye on them if they cannot cope and are likely to commit suicide or even just going to visit people who are less well off and trying to talk through with them their financial situation and how they can overcome this. It means supporting people who have just had a loved one die.

We must serve others in our community and also in a worldwide community. This means helping youth centers or volunteer to help those handicapped people who cannot drive and taking them to the shops to get food or taking them on trips to the countryside. A good example of this is people who volunteer to get to Lourdes as a helper. There they help those people who find it difficult to walk or are in a wheelchair to get about and make sure that they experience all different things and visit all the religious places

I can see why some people would agree with his as some people just get baptized and then do not go back to the church until they need something and so are just using the church and never practicing their faith. These people take everything from the church but give nothing back to it. They should be going to mass and going to confessions regularly to have their sins forgiven.

Jesus never liked hypocrite such as the Pharisees therefore we should never ket hypocrisy into the church as Jesus did not approve of it.

There is no point of getting your child baptized and bringing your child into Christianity if you are bit going to bring them up as Christians or take them to mass often. If the church is so meaningless then why use it to get married in. Even if you don't got to mass you should at least practice your faith in the community and be caring and loving towards others. Then at least you have done something in the way of repaying God for bringing you into the world.

The sick people who never go to mass then need the church to give them their last rites and expect then to give it to them even though they have never practiced their faith.

These are kind of people who I think that the priest should refuse the sacrament because they never practice their faith and yet expect them to do services for them. This is injust and selfish.

On the other hand, I personally disagree that the priest should always refuse the sacraments to those who don't practice their faith.

The priest should not just confine practicing your faith as going to mass. It is about living as true Christians. There are lots of other easy of practicing your faith other than just going to mass. You can go out and visit the elderly or poor and check on them regularly.

Only god should have the right to decide whether or not someone should receive the sacrament of the Eucharist because we don't have the right to refuse anyone who is willing to accept it. Jesus told us that we had no right to judge, a sacrament is a meeting with god and by refusing someone the sacrament we are refusing people access to god.

Jesus never did turn his back on anyone, he accepted anyone who wanted to be forgiven for example the tax collectors, Samaritan woman etc. he never said that they were not worthy to be with them.

We should never reuse someone baptism as it is stopping a child from entering gods kingdom. We shouldn't deny anyone access to gods family because their parents do not keep their faith. We shouldn't refuse a child confirmation because they should be able to receive the Holy Spirit. Everyone should be able to receive the Eucharist, as we have no right to refuse anyone from Christ himself. Everyone should receive the sacrament of the sick as no one should die without it and everyone deserves penance because no matter what people do they should always deserve forgiveness.

Overall I feel that a priest should not refuse anyone the right to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, as no one should be stopped from receiving god.