In this encyclical letter On the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II seeks to rekindle in the faithful the profound sense of amazement and gratitude that surrounds the Eucharist.

"In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his Body and Blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope," John Paul II writes. "The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift -- however precious -- among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his Person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work."