One of the beliefs I have always kept with me, from my upbringing in the Catholic Church and through my years in evangelicalism, is the reality of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It is so much more than a memorial service activity. It is that which has nourished the body of Christ since it’s first institution at the Last Supper, and it has been preserved in the church from its earliest days.
St. Justin the Martyr (c. 100 – 165 A.D.)
“We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined.
For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology, 66)
The Ancient Walk 