Diocese of Orlando
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I. The Eucharist - Source and Summit of Ecclesial Life
1324 - The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."134 "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."135
1325 - "The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit."136
1326 - Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.137
1327 - In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."138
Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 1324-1327
Chapter I: The Importance and Dignity of the Celebration of the Eucharist
16. The celebration of Mass, as the action of Christ and of the People of God arrayed hierarchically, is the center of the whole of Christian life for the Church both universal and local, as well as for each of the faithful individually.[22] For in it is found the high point both of the action by which God sanctifies the world in Christ and of the worship that the human race offers to the Father, adoring him through Christ, the Son of God, in the Holy Spirit.[23] In it, moreover, during the course of the year, the mysteries of redemption are celebrated so as to be in some way made present.[24] As to the other sacred actions and all the activities of the Christian life, these are bound up with it, flow from it, and are ordered to it.[25]
General Instruction of the Roman Missal
Footnotes[22] Cf. Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 41; Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, no. 11; Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum ordinis, nos. 2, 5, 6; Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops, Christus Dominus, no. 30; Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, no. 15; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction, Eucharisticum mysterium, May 25, 1967, nos. 3e, 6: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 59 (1967), pp. 542, 544-545.
[23] Cf. Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10.
[24] Cf. Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 102.
[25] Cf. Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10; cf. Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum ordinis, no. 5.
134 LG 11.
135 PO 5.
136 Congregation of Rites, instruction, Eucharisticum mysterium, 6.
138 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 18, 5: PG 7/l, 1028.