Where is it written [that Christ instituted this sacrament]?
The holy apostles Matthew, Mark, and Luke and St. Paul write this:
Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the night on which he was betrayed, took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said: "Take. Eat. This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me." In the same way he also took the cup after supper, gave thanks, gave it to them, and said: "Take and drink from it, all of you. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you to forgive sins. This do, as often as you drink it, to remember me."
Prayer
Holy God, you are the God of our ancestors. Keep the memory of your great savings acts alive in us, especially of our Lord Jesus Christ and all that happened beginning on the night of his betrayal. In his name we ask this, Amen.
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But that tradition, honored over two millennia, is not a dead tradition, but very much alive. Why? Notice the focus: utterly on Jesus Christ and what he did on the night of his betrayal. And on what happened to him Good Friday and Easter. And what has happened to us as a result.
It is true that we are merely one more generation in an immense succession of generations; but we are important, for if we in this global generation were to fail to honor this practice and lose our apostolic memory, the church and the faith would vanish.
Being the church is therefore both our joy and our mission; our hope and the work of remembering.