according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of
Melchizedek.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. II, Ch. IV: We therefore confess that the Sacrifice of the Mass is
and ought to be considered one and the same Sacrifice as that of the cross,
for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ our Lord, who offered
Himself, once only, a bloody Sacrifice on the altar of the cross. The bloody
and unbloody victim are not two, but one victim only, whose Sacrifice is
daily renewed in the Eucharist, in obedience to the command of our Lord:
Do this for a commemoration of me.
The priest is also one and the same, Christ the Lord; for the ministers who
offer Sacrifice, consecrate the holy mysteries, not in their own person, but
in that of Christ, as the words of consecration itself show, for the priest
does not say: This is the body of Christ, but, This is my body; and thus,
acting in the Person of Christ the Lord, he changes the substance of the
bread and wine into the true substance of His body and blood.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
No. 1333:
At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and
wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit,
become Christ’s Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord’s command the
Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what
he did on the eve of his Passion: “He took bread...” “He took the cup filled
with wine...” The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing
understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify
the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the
Creator for bread and wine, fruit of the “work of human hands,” but above
all as “fruit of the earth” and “of the vine”––gifts of the Creator. The
Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who “brought
out bread and wine,” a prefiguring of her own offering.
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