CCC 1329 The Lord’s Supper, because of its connection with the supper which the Lord took with his disciples on the eve of his Passion and because it anticipates the wedding feast of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem.1
The Breaking of Bread, because Jesus used this rite, part of a Jewish meat when as master of the table he blessed and distributed the bread,2 above all at the Last Supper.3 It is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection,4 and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies;5 by doing so they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him.6
The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.7
CCC 1335 The miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his disciples to feed the multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his Eucharist.8 The sign of water turned into wine at Cana already announces the Hour of Jesus’ glorification. It makes manifest the fulfillment of the wedding feast in the Father’s kingdom, where the faithful will drink the new wine that has become the Blood of Christ.9
1 Cf. 1 Cor 11:20; Rev 19:9.
2 Cf. Mt 14:19; 15:36; Mk 8:6, 19.
3 Cf. Mt 26:26; 1 Cor 11:24.
4 Cf. Lk 24:13-35.
5 Cf. Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11.
6 Cf. 1 Cor 10:16-17.
7 Cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34.
8 Cf. Mt 14:13-21; 15:32-39.
9 Cf. Jn 2:11; Mk 14:25.