I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats* my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. John 6:51-58
Cardinal Raymond Burke Homily
Christ remains always alive for us in the Church, most perfectly in the Holy Eucharist, in order to meet us with divine love, "to win our hearts," that is, to free our hearts from the slavery of sin and to free them for the faithful and enduring love of God and of our neighbor.
Today, we celebrate the great mystery of God's love for us, the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is given to us in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. God sealed the covenant of His love with us, through Moses, at Mount Sinai with the sprinkling of the blood of "young bulls" offered in sacrifice.[2] He brought the covenant to fulfillment with the Blood of Christ, which was poured out in sacrifice, for us, from His pierced Heart on the Cross at Calvary and is poured out unceasingly, for us, from His glorious pierced Heart in the Eucharistic Sacrifice which He offer on the altars of churches and chapels throughout the world. Read the Entire Homily
Encyclical Letter DEUS CARITAS EST of The Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI
In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path. Nor has the Lord been absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect his presence, in his word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist. In the Church's Liturgy, in her prayer, in the living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive his presence and we thus learn to recognize that presence in our daily lives. He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has “loved us first”, love can also blossom as a response within us. Read the Entire Encyclical
St. Augustine's Theology of the Eucharist
In Sermon 227 to the neophytes on Easter, St. Augustine says that the visible bread and wine on the altar, “sanctified by the word of God,” is His Body and Blood. Through devoutly receiving that Body and that Blood that was shed for us, we become that Body, which means that we are joined in the close union of the Mystical Body. Summary by Lawrence Feingold
Fathers of the Church on the Eucharist