Luke 22:19
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
“What Christ declared is true, and this truth is fulfilled every time the eucharist is celebrated. The Church confesses Christ’s real, living and active presence in the eucharist.” This passage was taken from a well-known World Council of Churches document, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, a document signed in 1982 by representatives of virtually every major Protestant denomination (as well as by Catholic and Orthodox theologians).
There is no question that the Church (in the best ecumenical sense of the word), historically and down to the present day, has earnestly sought to take these words of our Lord very seriously.
The bread is His body, the cup is His blood. When we celebrate the eucharist, let us give thanks for the Incarnation, i.e., the Word becoming flesh. Let us give thanks for our salvation, i.e., for the Body broken and the Blood shed. And let us remember that Christ is our Life, i.e., our food indeed and our drink indeed.
