CD: The Fundamental Purpose of the Eucharist (i.e., the Mass)

Catholics and Protestants alike are fascinated with the Eucharist, performed in pulpits by laity and clergy alike.  Why is it so popular?

The service is divided into several parts: 1) the call to worship, 2) a statement of  its avowal of the Christian message, 3) prayer for all who should heed its proclamations and addresses, 4) identification of the community of believers who are participating in the service; 5) gathering of those who are to participate in the ceremony; 6) the supplication of participants for divine intervention in the affairs of mankind, 7) the receiving of the transformed bread and wine into the mind and body of each participant; and 8) the exhortation to Christianize the world around us, ie., to do God's work among us.

What ties each part to the whole is the underlining belief that we Christians will make a mark in the world only with God's help.  Our supplication is to invoke God's handiwork upon us so as to accomplish HIS will.  

We cannot act on our own and achieve what God has in store for us to do.  The communion service with the symbols of God's divine presence in the bread and wine in which we partake is the recognition of our dependence upon God to rise above our self-centered aims and purposes to achieve a universality to our actions--for which at the close of the service we praise God for His faithfulness to us, so as to protect and guide us to do better than we could if just lowly human beings.

Why these noble aims to do God's work on earth?  Because, as we announce in 4), we are the people of God, the creatures of  Peace, the progenitors of Justice and Righteousness in the universe.