Pope John Paul II Quotes

Once I've received the Eucharist, then I'm prepared to go out and play.

The Lord's supper is memorative, and so it has the nature and use of a pledge or token of love, left by a dying to a dear surviving friend.

I think that at the supper I neither receive flesh nor blood, but bread and wine; which bread when it is broken, and the wine when it is drunken, put me in remembrance how that for my sins the body of Christ was broken, and his blood shed on the cross.

And Christ says of that which is blessed, which is offered, received, eaten and drunk: This is My body; this is My blood.

I acknowledge that the sacrament of the altar is very God's body in form of bread, but it is in another manner God's body than it is in heaven.

In the Eucharist, priest and people together come to concelebrate. Here the ladder Jacob saw only as a dream becomes for us a reality, the medicine that cures our souls.

The bread that you see on the altar is the Body of Christ as soon as it is sanctified by God's word. The chalice, or better what is contained in the chalice, is the Blood of Christ as soon as it is sanctified by God's word

That is the power of the Eucharist. At the communion table you have rich and poor together in the early church and they were being challenged.

I am quite sure that if we could but once approach the Most Holy Sacrament with great faith and love, it would suffice to make us rich. How much more so if we approach it often!

'Eat my flesh,' Jesus says, 'and drink my blood.' The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children

My Jesus! What a lovable contrivance this holy Sacrament was - that You would hide under the appearance of bread to make Yourself loved and to be available for a visit by anyone who desires You!

On the altar you are looking at the same thing as you saw there last night. You have not heard, however, what this is, what it signifies, or about the greatness of the reality of which it is a sacrament. Your eyes are looking at bread and cup. This is the evidence before your physical sight. But your faith must be instructed concerning it- this bread being Christ 's Body and the cup containing His Blood. Though perhaps these words may be enough to initiate faith, faith must be further instructed in accordance with the Prophet's words: 'Believe that you may understand'

The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God

How many of you say: I should like to see His face, His garments, His shoes. You do see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. He gives Himself to you, not only that you may see Him, but also to be your food and nourishment.

The Angel's bread is made the Bread of man today.

You also realize, Venerable Brothers, that the Eucharist is reserved in churches or oratories to serve as the spiritual center of a religious community or a parish community, indeed of the whole Church and the whole of mankind, since it contains, beneath the veil of the species, Christ the invisible Head of the Church, the Redeemer of the world, the center of all hearts, 'by whom all things are and by whom we exist'.

Integrating in the Church doesn't mean receiving communion.

[It is appropriate that the Body and Blood of Christ be truly present in this Sacrament] because of the perfection of the New Covenant. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant contained the true sacrifice of Christ's Passion only in symbol....Therefore it was necessary that the sacrifice of the New Covenant, instituted by Christ, have something more, namely, that it contain Christ Himself who has suffered and contain Him not only in symbol but in reality.

This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist

...In this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes, except for His Most Holy Body and Blood.

But look at the men who have those perverted notions about the grace of Jesus Christ which has come down to us, and see how contrary to the mind of God they are. . . . They even abstain from the Eucharist and from the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which flesh suffered for our sins, and which the Father of His goodness raised up again.

The Bread of angels has become the Bread of mankind; This heavenly Bread puts an end to all images; O wonderful reality! The poor, the slave, and the humble can eat the Lord.

We are taught to take the bread into our bodies as proof of Jesus's body.

Being for every man the touchstone of faith and love, the Eucharist, like on the Cross, divided the minds as soon as it was announced... Nothing engages a man as much as does the Eucharist

'Lord you know that I love you...Lord, you know that I love you' (Jn 21:15-17). The Eucharist is, in a certain way, the culminating point of this answer. I wish to repeat it together with the whole Church to Him, who manifested His love by means of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, remaining with us 'to the close of the age'