If the Eucharistic Prayer is the heart of the Mass, the words of consecration are the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer. The rest of the Mass is the sacred setting for this sacred moment.
Since the celebration of the Last Supper, the Church has faithfully maintained Jesus’ command: “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). Through the Eucharistic celebration, the Church makes present that moment, those gestures and words that Jesus made and pronounced. In that Supper, Christ instituted the Paschal sacrifice and banquet, by means of which the sacrifice of the cross is continually made present in the Church when the priest, representing Christ, pronounces the words of Jesus. At that moment, those same words that Jesus spoke, somehow, resonate again because of the priest’s sacramental representation of Christ.
“For Christ took the bread and the chalice and gave thanks; he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat, and drink: this is my Body; this is the cup of my Blood. Do this in memory of me.” Accordingly, the Church has arranged the entire celebration of the Liturgy of the Eucharist in parts corresponding to precisely these words and actions of Christ” (GIRM 72).
But we must ask ourselves: What did Jesus mean by those words of the Last Supper: “This is my body” (Luke 22:19)? The word body does not indicate in the Bible a part of man, which together with the other parts form the whole man. In biblical language, and therefore in the language of Jesus, “body” designates the whole man, man in his totality and unity. It designates man insofar as he lives his life in a body, in a corporeal and mortal condition. In the Gospel of John, instead of the word “body,” he uses the word “flesh” (John 6:54), and it is clear that this word found in chapter 6 has the same meaning as in chapter 1, where it says “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), that is, man. “Body” thus indicates the whole of life. Jesus, in instituting the Eucharist, has left us as a gift his whole life, from the first moment of his Incarnation to his last breath.
Then he adds, “This is my blood” (Matthew 26:28). What does he add with his “blood”, if with his body he has already given us his whole life? He adds His death!
After giving us his life, he gives us the most precious part of it, his death. The term “blood” in the Bible does not indicate a part of the body. Rather, this term indicates an event: death. If blood is the seat of life, its shedding is the symbol of death. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). The Eucharist is the mystery of the Lord’s body and blood, that is, it is the mystery of the Lord’s life and death. It is in this way that each one of us is called to give our body with Jesus at Mass: be it time, health, energy, capacities, affections; and our blood: humiliations, failures, illnesses, everything that mortifies us. In this way we offer our bodies as a living, holy host, pleasing to God. (Romans 12:1)
López, Félix “Explanation of the Mass: The Consecration”, Home of the Mother, Accessed 15 April 2024, https://www.homeofthemother.org/en/resources/eucharist/549-explanation-of-the-mass/2418-consecration