Catholic ministers of Holy Communion are trained not to say, “This is the Body of Christ” or “Receive the Body of Christ” because the Eucharist is more than just the consecrated bread and wine. There is a reason eucharistic ministers are taught to say, “The Body of Christ.”
When the communicant responds, “Amen,” to the minister’s prompting, he is acknowledging more than just a belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. One’s “amen” means he believes that: (1) the bread and wine, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit, have become the Body and Blood of Christ; (2) he is called to be the Body of Christ in word and deed; and (3) the community of worshippers with whom he has gathered is called to be “one body, one spirit in Christ.”
Unfortunately, too many people discuss the Eucharist simply from the perspective of whether or not the elements of bread and wine are purely symbolic or whether they actually become the Body and Blood of Christ.
No matter how much Catholic Church leaders teach about the Eucharist and the importance of Church membership (which, incidentally, has dropped from 76% in 2000 to 58% in 2020), many Catholics will have a difficult time believing that the Eucharist is important if it is administered to people who are contemptuous of fundamental Catholic beliefs.
Continue reading at Church Militant