Telling me that you answered me and answering me are two very different things.
A piece of bread is perpetual? What, if anything, do you think you mean by that? Do you mean that it is perpetually a piece of bread, and so is never transubstantiated into God?
The bread is the body of Christ, and the cup is the blood of Christ. This is all part of the Eucharist being a sacrifice. He is offered on the altar to the Father, in reality, not in symbol. It's quite silly to a theological Catholic, to compare the Protestant 'figurative' and 'symbolic' biblical interpretation, with zero consultation with what the earliest signs of the Church's worship consisted of. In a sense the Passion was a figure or type, of Eucharist. Christ fulfilled certain prophecies in His Passion, and the Eucharist fulfills certain prophecies, one or more of them, in the Eucharist being a valid, Abel-like sacrifice, God Himself providing the Lamb (His Son; Isaac is the type of Son, Abraham is the type of Father; Abraham believes God raises the dead; which is the Apostolic teaching on why Abraham was willing to apply lethal force to his own son Isaac, he wasn't a sadist, he wasn't a terrible dad, he believed God raises the dead---that's the faith of Abraham).
At Mass this week we heard the Word of God, where Hebrews talks about Christ's Passion and cross being the one sacrifice for all. No further sacrifices are needed, ever, because of His Passion and cross, And, because of the Eucharist. His Passion and cross was Him being sacrificed on the altar to the Father, He was offered up to His Father, in it He fulfilled the Levitical priesthood's purpose. To underscore the finality of that old priesthood, He arranged 40 years later for the Roman armies commanded by General Titus to obliterate the old altar.
Now, there are valid altars to the Father in every church building where a valid priest validly celebrates the sacrifice of the Eucharist. God is worshiped now to the four corners of the world. He used to have one altar, in the temple, in the holy-of-holies, in Jerusalem. Now He's got valid altars in every inhabited continent.
Catholics in full communion are authorized to receive Holy Communion, which is eating the sacrifice, which is Really the body and blood of our Lord, because the sacrifice is valid, so it must be Him. And it doesn't make any sense at all that He would want us to celebrate a ritual commemorating Him in perpetuity. That's just silly to me, and it's no wonder that the practice of 'communion' in Protestant churches is performed once a month, and sometimes even less frequently.
Mormons use water instead of wine, I read somewhere. It doesn't matter if you use water or wine or juice, yours isn't the valid sacrifice anyway. Jesus is not becoming your elements of communion. This is why the authentic priesthood is necessary, because this is how we know the Eucharist is validly celebrated, because the right people are making the offering. It's exactly like the Levites being the valid priests for the ancestors of Jewish people. Part of the sacrifice being valid, was that the priest making the offering was from the tribe of Levi.
It may seem arbitrary that only validly ordained or consecrated priests or bishops can validly offer the sacrifice of the Eucharist, but it's less arbitrary than the old covenant's requirement to be a Levite. Any race can become a priest. You just have to be single and celibate. There was no way to change your tribe, just like there was no way if you are a Gentile, to change into a Jewish person.
Now, valid sacrifices are made to God all around the world, in every country, and in many of those countries, every day, but definitely every Sunday/Lord's Day. The Levitical high priest of the old covenant entered the holy-of-holies once per year. Christ Jesus's Passion and cross fulfilled that annual sacrifice for sins, once for all, and now, instead of once per year, the Eucharist/Mass is celebrated once per week minimum everywhere, and in many places the sacrifice is offered many times every week, many parishes in Boston and surrounding, have Mass seven times a week or more, so that anybody with odd schedules can regularly go to Mass weekly, and also anybody who can and wants to, can go to multiple Masses per week.
And when you're in full communion, you can validly eat and drink the offering made on the altar. That's really very special. And in order for the sacrifice to be valid, it must be Christ's body and blood, and that is why eating the bread and drinking the cup is such a solemn and special thing. And it's why Paul threatens you with violence, if you eat and drink unworthily. It will not go well for you if you do that, so if you're not sure if you're in full communion, then go to confession. That's what it's for. It's not for salvation, it's for eating the bread and drinking the cup. It's like dealing with spiritually radioactive materials, and if you're not properly suited up, in pressed wedding garments, you're going to be harmed. Don't do it if you're not in full communion.
We gather together in His name---far more than two or three of us---and He is there with us. Protestants think that means one thing, and Catholics know it's Communion. And Communion is what is specifically denoted when communion with the Church is the topic. If you can validly/safely receive the body and blood of the Lord, you are confirmed to be in full communion. If you know you're in full communion, then you are permitted to eat the bread and drink the cup.
If you are in full communion, you can eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord. Do you know who in the Old Testament could eat of the offering from the altar? And could they eat any blood? And compare with who gets to eat from the altar in Christianity, what about blood, and now compare to feeding the 5000. Christ's discourse on the Eucharist, pulled from Apostolic tradition by the Apostle John and committed to writing, occurred just after He fed the 5000. Did a single sacrifice feed 5000 Levitical priests? Not hardly. But Christ is able to feed 5000 with a small sacrifice. Who eats from the altar, in the old covenant? Compare to the New Testament, and the priesthood of all believers.
lain: Oh please. The Protestants have 'boards' of 'elders,' and you know that. They have 'pastors,' and 'elders,' even though from the start, the Church's pastors were the elders, and they were called bishops, overseers (all biblical). They were consecrated by the Apostles, and subsequent bishops were consecrated by bishops consecrated by the Apostles, such that every bishop can trace their lineage back to the Apostles themselves. Protestants don't have bishops, not valid bishops, not authentic pastors, no, they don't have access to that spring, it resides with the Catholic Church, and with the Orthodox churches alone. You can't invent a bishop. You can only go to the already extant bishops. Your church doesn't have an authentic pastor, not biblically, not according to the Scripture, not according to the whole Church history. You've got counterfeits, teaching some counterfeit "Christian" teachings. By the grace of God, much of what most Protestants teach is authentic/Apostolic, but it is by the grace of God.