The Eucharistic Prayer is first and foremost that: a prayer, a prayer. It is located at the very center of the celebration, not because of chronology, but because of importance. It is a prayer that the celebrant proclaims, but in doing so he does so in the name of the whole assembly: it is not a personal or individual prayer of his own.
It is a prayer of thanksgiving, but it is also a prayer of consecration. In it the Holy Spirit is asked to transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord, and also to transform those who are to receive it, so that they may obtain a precious gift from God: unity, communion, being one body and one spirit.
In the Eucharist we find a moment of solemn petition of the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are two moments, and both are related to each other. Both are present in the Eucharistic Prayer.
Just before the consecration, the priest, by laying on his hands, invokes the gift of the Spirit upon the bread and wine. It is not a human action that transforms the gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ, but the action of the Spirit, which is solemnly invoked. It is God who saves, He is the one who transforms the bread and wine.
The Church wanted to highlight this double moment of epiclesis and consecration by asking us for a gesture of prayer and adoration, which is to kneel: from the moment the priest lays his hands on the offerings until the consecration of the chalice is over.
After the account of the institution, the priest again asks for the Spirit. This time he does not invoke it over the gifts, but on the assembly, on those who are going to receive those consecrated gifts. The Spirit transforms the bread and wine, and he also transforms the Christian community, “those of us who are going to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.”
In the Eucharist we celebrate the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we do so with the signs He left us for this purpose at the Last Supper.
To celebrate this memorial is first and foremost to celebrate a presence in the “now” in which we live: the presence of Christ, of his salvation. Without repeating the events of our salvation, the grace that is poured out from them comes to us, because Christ is present in the liturgy of the Church. It is not a mere memory. It’s a presence; and an effective presence, which calls us to an encounter that changes our lives.
Navarro, Ramón, “La Plegaria Eucarística, en el corazón de la celebración”, Diócesis de Cartagena, Accessed 1 April 2024, https://diocesisdecartagena.org/formacion/la-plegaria-eucaristica-corazon-la-celebracion/