During this year of Eucharistic Revival, I would like to continue reflecting on that amazing gift Jesus left us.
Today is Pentecost Sunday. We celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit has a central role in the celebration of Holy Mass. In our Roman Rite, just before the consecration the priest extends his hands over the bread and wine. The server (usually) rings the bell. In Eucharistic Prayer II, he prays:
You are indeed Holy, O Lord,
the fount of all holiness. Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray,
by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is called down upon the bread and wine to be consecrated in similar ways in Eucharistic Prayers III and IV.
This is also done in the Eucharistic Celebration (called the Divine Liturgy) in the Catholic Eastern Byzantine Rite.
Again we offer unto Thee this reasonable and bloodless worship, and we ask Thee, and pray Thee, and supplicate Thee: Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here offered.
And make this bread the precious Body of Thy Christ. (Amen)
And that which is in this cup, the precious Blood of Thy Christ. (Amen)
This is called the Epiclesis.
Specifically, it is the point at which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit (or the power of God’s blessing) upon the Eucharistic bread and wine.
Parenthetically, the power of the Holy Spirit is invoked in every Sacrament. Listen for it for it. And perhaps on this Pentecost Sunday and better every day pray “Come, Holy Spirit” that the power of the Spirit may also transform us as the Spirit is invoked for the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Saint James Catholic Church 