The Eucharist, from the Greek Eucharistia, thanksgiving—the word used in all the narratives of Institution,[[3]] and, technically, the third part of the Eucharistic Service.
The Breaking of the Bread, one of the earliest names for the Sacrament (Acts ii. 42, 1 Cor. x. 16).
The Holy Sacrifice, which Christ once offered, and is ever offering.
The Lord's Supper (1 Cor. xii. 10), a name perhaps originally used for the Agapé, or love feast, which preceded the Eucharist, and then given to the Eucharist itself. It is an old English name, used in the story of St. Anselm's last days, where it is said: "He passed away as morning was breaking on the Wednesday before the day of our Lord's Supper".
The Holy Communion (1 Cor. x. 16), in which our baptismal union with Christ is consummated, and which forms a means of union between souls in the Church Triumphant, at Rest, and on Earth. In it, Christ, God and Man, is the bond of oneness.
All these, and other aspects of the Sacrament, are comprehended and gathered up in the name which marks its supremacy,—The Blessed Sacrament.
Consider: What it is;
What it does;
How it does it.
(I) WHAT IT IS.
It is the supernatural conjunction of matter and spirit, of Bread and Wine and of the Holy Ghost. Here, as in Baptism, the "inward and spiritual" expresses itself through the "outward and visible". Both must be there. And, notice again. This conjunction is not a physical conjunction, according to physical laws; nor is it a spiritual conjunction, according to spiritual laws; it is a Sacramental conjunction, according to Sacramental laws. As in Baptism, so in the Blessed Sacrament: the "outward and visible" is, and remains, subject to natural laws, and the inward and spiritual to spiritual laws; but the Sacrament itself is under neither natural nor spiritual but Sacramental laws.