Eucharist (Communion)

The washing of the feet is not actually apart of communion-He did this for a pacific reason. In John 13 sets the stage and the reason for this example.

He arose from the supper table when the preparation had been completed and began to the disciples feet.The reson for this was their argument about who would be the greatest among them(lk 22:24) It shows that he is the greatest and him being our high priest, humbled himself to the level of a servant and through His example we are to do the same.

Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. The one who is least among all of you is the one who is greatest." Luke 9:48 (GW) Know ye what I have done to you?

13 Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.

14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.

15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.

16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

17 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13:12-17 (KJV)

http://www.answers.com/library/World%20of%20the%20Body-cid-27679 Eucharist The Eucharist - also known variously as the Mass, Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, according to doctrinal position - is a central act of worship in Christianity which commemorates or 'follows' the Last Supper as recorded in Matthew 26: 26-8, Mark 14: 22-4 and Luke 22: 17-20, in the eating and drinking of bread and wine, thought either to be or to represent Christ's body and blood. From the Greek, meaning 'thanksgiving', there is evidence of the earliest Christians participating in this liturgy, believed to have been instituted by Christ in his celebration of the Passover meal on the night before he died and during which he 'gave thanks'. Both Acts and the Epistles of Paul show early Christians participating in this service; Paul emphasized participation in the Eucharist as a Christian duty because it signified the unity of Christians in one body - the body of Christ. Early Christian art, including wall paintings in the catacombs, illustrates Christians eating and drinking bread and wine together, and several written texts provide evidence of the different ways in which the Eucharist was celebrated by the early Christians. For example, the first Christian handbook, the Didache, documents a ritual which is part proper meal and part sacramental, introduced by a confession of sins, and expressed as a foretaste of the future coming of Jesus.

The early Church and the patristic period saw variety of practice in the ritual, but general acceptance of the idea that the eucharistic elements of the bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ. The notion that the bread and wine were transformed into Christ's body and blood during the eucharistic service became a matter of debate in the West in the Middle Ages, by which time the Eucharist was firmly established as one of the seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic church. This debate led to a more precise formulation of transubstantiation of the Fifth Lateran Council (1215) and by Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotelian physics to explain the process by which, during the act of consecration by the priest, the substance of the bread and wine changed into the body and blood of Christ (that is, changed their essence) while remaining in the accidental forms of bread and wine. The later Middle Ages saw great eucharistic devotion, especially amongst religious women who imitated and shared Christ's suffering by eating nothing but the host - that is, Christ's body - so that they might become so united with the body of Christ that their own bodies would be no longer ordinary human bodies, but a body like Christ's. The institution of Corpus Christi ('Body of Christ') as a feast day in 1264 indicated a more popular, widespread (and less extreme) eucharistic piety.

The Protestant Reformation saw much dispute about the meaning of the Eucharist, and it was the issue on which the mainstream German and Swiss Protestant reformers broke with each other, at the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. The dispute turned on the extent to which Christ was thought to be present in the bread and wine, with Zwingli holding the extreme position that the Eucharist was a mere memorial of the Last Supper and there was no change in the bread and wine at all (thus the Eucharist is simply the Lord's Supper), and Luther adhering to the doctrine of 'consubstantiation' in which, during the Eucharist, both the bread and wine and Christ's body and blood co-existed. Their disagreement was expressed particularly in their interpretation of Jesus' words at the Last Supper - 'this is my body' and 'this is my blood', with Zwingli insisting that 'is' means 'signifies'. Behind Zwingli's position lies his belief that 'the body and spirit are such essentially different things that whichever one you take it cannot be the other' (Commentary on True and False Religion, 1525). The Roman Catholic Church, in its sixteenth-century reforming Council of Trent, reaffirmed its belief in transubstantiation.

Debate also began in the late Middle Ages, developed in the Reformation, and continues to this day on the extent to which the Eucharist is a sacrifice. In part this debate is about the nature of priestly and lay power, for the notion of sacrifice in the Eucharist suggests that the priest is exercising a particular kind of spiritual power and authority in the re-enactment of the events of the Passion, in which the body of Christ is broken and his blood shed, and in effecting the transformation of the elements from bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. This spiritual authority is often signified by the bodily gestures of the priest while he or she is consecrating the elements while presiding at the Eucharist. On the whole Protestants have rejected this notion of sacrifice in the Eucharist, partly because it might be seen to detract from Christ's once-and-for-all act of self-giving on the Cross (in which singular act they believe he redeemed humanity from sin), by suggesting that humans constantly have to petition God to act for our salvation, and partly because of their understanding of the priesthood of all believers by which the authority of their ministers lies in their proclamation of the Word and leading of congregations rather than in any form of sacramental ministry. In the West, Roman Catholics and 'high' Anglicans have continued to debate the notion of sacrifice in the Eucharist, while the Liturgical movement of the twentieth century emphasized the importance of the Eucharist for the corporate life of the Church, thereby reaffirming the notion of the Church as the body of Christ and the active participation of the laity in the Eucharist. Vatican II also stressed these points

Viaticum: Holy Communion given to those in danger of death. It may be received at any hour of the day or night, not fasting, and so often as may be required during the same illness. If it is given at the same time as Extreme Unction (Anointing of the Sick), its administration precedes that sacrament. It is given with the words, "Receive, brother, the viaticum of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may preserve thee to everlasting life. Amen." The same form is used when a solder receives on or going to the battlefield.

from A Catholic Dictionary, edited by Donald Attwater, Second Edition, Revised. 1957.

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980

Viaticum. The reception of Holy Communion when there is probable danger of death. Viaticum should not be deferred too long in sickness lest the dying lose consciousness. It can be given as often as such danger exists, and is required of all the faithful who have reached the age of discretion. No laws of fasting persist either for the recipient or for the priest who must consecrate in order to supply the Host in an emergency. (Etym. Latin Viaticum, traveling provisions; from viaticus, of a road or journey, from via, way, road.

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If you are referring to the Holy Eucharist or the Mass then it has everything to do with the Last Supper. The Last Supper was the Institution of the Eucharist which was a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross the following day. The Holy Eucharist is a re-presentation of that same sacrifice.

Look at it this way. God exists, He just is, He can not change, for Him there is no yesterday or tomorrow, as the Bible puts it, "a thousand years are as a watch in the night". From God's point of view He created the world. Put your hands out in front of you on the edge of the desk, as far as you can spread them. Now pretend your left hand is the beginning of the world, and your right hand is the end of the world. You are God, you look down and, BAM, create the world-from Your point of view (God's) He created the beginning, middle, and end all at the same time. You and I are just creatures WHO CHANGE. We live on that line, so we can only see what is right in front of us, or right behind us.

The Last Supper and the Holy Eucharist (the Mass) are both looking at Jesus' crucifixion from God's point of view. When you go into a Catholic church to attend Mass, what is happening on that altar is NOT a reenactment, not just a memorial, NOT just a representation, it is the actual Sacrifice of Our Blessed Lord on the Cross. He is NOT dying again, you are witnessing the actual one time event from God's point of view.

Now, the Last Supper was looking forward to the Crucifixion. On our "time line" in my previous example, they could not see it yet with their eyes, but they could with the eyes of faith. Jesus was making His Sacrifice and His Grace, through His Body and Blood available to His apostles right then.

The Holy Mass is the same Last Supper, we are not doing it again, we are NOT crucifying Jesus again, God is presenting, through His priest, Jesus sacrifice on Calvary in 30 A.D. It is just as if you were standing there on Calvary that dreadful afternoon with the apostle, John, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The actual form of it: the Last Supper was the form of the Passover supper:

from the Catechism:

1340 By celebrating the Last Supper in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.

The "cup" from the Last Supper was the third of the four cups that are used in the Passover, when Jesus said He would not drink wine again until He came into the kingdom, He interrupted the Jewish Passover, and didn't end it until He drank the wine on the Cross - the fourth cup, and culmination of God's Passover.

The present form of the Eucharist that you can see in any Catholic church is two parts: the Liturgy of the Word (the first half), and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (the second half). The first half is from the Passover dinner with the readings, etc. The second is the actual offering of Christ on the cross and then for our participation in His sacrifice through Holy Communion.