The following description of the Eucharist can be read on the Church of England's official website (churchofengland.org):
Outwardly, the Eucharist takes the form of a shared meal of bread and wine, recalling the fact that, at the Last Supper, Jesus associated the breaking of bread and sharing of wine with his own imminent death, giving them special significance.
After his resurrection, the disciples recognised Jesus as he broke bread to share with them. Each time we share the meal Jesus shared with his friends, we remember his offering of himself on the cross, we rejoice in his resurrection from the dead, and look forward to the coming of God’s Kingdom.
The Eucharist (also known as Holy Communion, the Mass, or the Lord’s Supper), can take many different forms across the Church of England, and it may be understood by Christians in different ways, but at the heart of the celebration there is always a special prayer of thanksgiving, or ‘Eucharistic Prayer’ (eucharistein means ‘to give thanks’ in Greek). This is offered by the priest who presides at the service in the name of all who are gathered, giving thanks for all that God has given us in Christ.
At a celebration of the Eucharist, the community gathers, asks God’s forgiveness for its sins, listens to readings from the Bible including a reading from one of the Gospels. A sermon may be preached and the community prays together. Bread and wine are brought to the holy table (also called ‘the altar’), the priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer, and everyone says the Lord’s Prayer together. The community then receives the consecrated bread and wine. At the end of the service, the community is sent out into the world as a ‘living sacrifice’ to live and work to God’s praise and glory.
To most Catholics who attend Mass according to the Novus Ordo or the New Order of Mass instituted by Paul VI after Vatican II, the above Anglican definition of the Eucharist may not appear to be problematic, since much of the modern liturgy has incorporated this view of the Eucharist held by the Church of England and other Protestant communities. However, if you have ever attended Holy Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite (that is, according to the predominant Rite of Mass used by the Catholic Church throughout the Western world before the Second Vatican Council), there are aspects of the above description of "the Anglican Eucharist" that pose serious problems for a Catholic. Let us look at some of these together so that we can learn how the Catholic and the Protestant views of what the Holy Eucharist is differ — and not just in secondary matters but even in the essentials.
The Anglican (and Protestant) teaching is that, at every Eucharist, we recall what Jesus did at the Last Supper and, through this re-enactment of a past event,
we remember [Christ's] offering of himself on the cross, we rejoice in his resurrection from the dead, and look forward to the coming of God’s Kingdom.
Thus the Protestant Eucharist or Last Supper, as it is often called, is a "remembrance" or "recalling" of a historical event that occurred 2000 years ago in that Upper Chamber in Jerusalem where Jesus "broke bread" with His Apostles. In the modern Catholic liturgy, the Anglican sentiment quoted above is incorporated into modern Catholic worship at one of the "memorial acclamations" (that is, the acclamations of remembrance) just after the second Consecration, wherein the people sing or say:
We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again.
Thus, the Consecration (the most sacred part of the Mass) is seen in the modern liturgy as a type of remembering of Christ's death and a profession of His rising and coming again in glory at the end of time. It is somewhat bizarre that we are looking to Christ's Second Coming at the end of time at the precise moment when He has just descended from Heaven and has come in the flesh among us upon the sacred Altar. If anything, the focus on Our Lord's Second Coming (which is not a bad thing in itself) is poorly placed in the modern liturgy because it de-emphasizes the fact that He is right there, really and truly present on the Altar. You don't "look forward to someone coming again" while that person is still there, present before you. You only look forward to the coming of a person who is absent.
The description of the Anglican Eucharist goes on to say that the "Eucharistic Prayer" is basically a prayer of thanksgiving (since that is the Greek sense of the word eucharistein). The people gather together as a community, ask God forgiveness for their sins, listen to the Word of God and to a sermon, and then bring up bread and wine to the table. The people then listen to the priest praying a prayer of thanksgiving (Eucharistic Prayer), pray the Our Father together with the priest, and then share in the consecrated bread and wine.
This description of Anglican worship is certainly not an adequate description of what happens at a Catholic Mass, despite the fact that most modern Masses take on a very similar expression of worship to that described in the Anglican service. One of the central problems with the Anglican description of worship is that the "Eucharistic Prayer," even in the modern Catholic Mass, is not just a prayer of thanksgiving. It is a consecratory prayer. That is, it consecrates the bread and wine. There is a reference to the people receiving "consecrated bread and wine" in the Anglican service, but nowhere is it stated explicitly that the Anglican Church believes them to be truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
In most Protestant churches, including those in the Anglican Communion, the place where the Eucharistic Prayer takes place is on a table-altar, with the minister standing behind the table as he (or she) prays over the bread and wine. There is generally no elevation of the "consecrated" bread and wine, because these churches do not believe them to be the true Body and Blood of Christ. They are merely symbolic of His Body and Blood or call to mind His Body and Blood. Protestant theology generally teaches that there is no real change of the bread and wine after the "consecration," but that, what changes is how they are perceived and experienced by us. They take on a different meaning for us, becoming symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ. But they do not actually become the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God. Some Protestant churches call this change of meaning transsignification (the signification or meaning of the bread and wine has changed), whereas Catholics profess transsubstantiation (the belief that the substance or actual identity of the bread and wine has changed: the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine but the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ).
So the Anglican and other Protestant communities do perform the ritual of the Last Supper, but only in a symbolic manner. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, teaches that when Jesus said, "This is My Body" and "This is My Blood," He actually meant that it is His Body and is His Blood — in a very real way, and not just metaphorically, poetically, or symbolically.
Another crucial difference is that Protestant theology sees the Eucharist primarily as a meal. This is why the minister stands behind the table and faces the people, as if he (or she) were presiding over a supper-table and offering a share in a common meal: the sharing of bread and of wine ("When we eat this bread and drink this cup"). The Catholic Church, however, has always understood the Mass to be primarily a Sacrifice in the form of a sacred meal: in fact, it is The Holy Sacrifice of the Cross made present on the Altar. This is why Catholic Altars (before Vatican II, at least) didn't really look like simple tables, and the priest who was offering the Sacrifice always stood in front of the Altar, turned in the same direction as the people towards the one Altar of Sacrifice. Both priest and lay people are turned towards Calvary, which is the essence of what the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass really is. The Catholic Mass is Calvary made present here and now.
At Holy Mass, the Catholic priest stands in the Person of Christ and is a mediator between God and man. This is why he always stood in front of the Altar: he stands between God and the people (between the Altar where Christ will become present and the people), to show that he is mediating on behalf of the people to God.
At every Mass, a Catholic priest engages in a two-fold mediation. He takes the prayers and worship of the people and offers them to God, and he takes the graces and blessings that come from God and gives them to the people. He does this by making Calvary present on the Altar, by offering to God the Father the Sacrifice of the Flesh and Blood of God the Son in unity with God the Holy Ghost: the most perfect Trinitarian offering there is.
So while the Protestant Eucharist is a symbolic re-enactment of the Last Supper, the Catholic Mass is the Mystery of Calvary made present on the Altar. The first is a symbolic "remembering" of what Christ did; the second, a real act of divine worship which truly makes present the Trinitarian offering par excellence that alone brings salvation to the world.
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