Help in understanding the Holy Eucharist sacrament

Here's an analogy that children and parents can understand about Jesus, as God's son, as a sacrifice to God on behalf of humankind, to save them from sin and create the New Covenant.

Little children receive all of their money from their parents in the form of allowance, or gifts from relatives. When it is Mom or Dad's birthday, or Christmas time, little children want to be generous and buy gifts for their parents, but are totally dependent on them for money. Lovingly telling your child that they don't have to spend money on you, that just a crayon drawing is gift enough, sometimes is not enough, because children by nature are generous and this is where generosity is nurtured. So as a godparent, I know that usually a parent arranges to give the child money and helps the child to shop for his or her own gift. Usually the Dad will take the child shopping for a gift for Mommy, and vice versa. So the loving parent provides the loving child with the very financial means for a gift for the parent.

In the Biblical times the children of God showed their love of the Lord by sacrificing (giving up) something of their own that is of great value to them, to give to God. Usually this was a perfect animal from the flock - often the purest and most valuable animal - but the poor could offer a pair of birds, or cereal with oil. Even for the poor this was great sacrifice, taking food out of the mouths of someone for some period of time, or at the least, eating into the surplus they had saved for times of crisis.

In the time of Jesus, God wanted to fulfill the actual sacrifice of valuable livestock or food from the families' stock to give to him in sacrifice, and complete this phase of human's gift giving to God. So Jesus Christ, the son of God through Mary and the Holy Spirit, allowed himself to be the last "bloody" sacrifice; the final loss of valuable life as sacrifice to God. He then drew upon the tradition that the poor could offer cereal and oil and instituted the Holy Eucharist. Thus God, the parent, is providing the very means by which his children can gift him and sacrifice to him. The bread is provided, the wine is provided, and the priest is provided. All that is needed is for this sacrament to be done reverentially and liturgically correct, in the memory of Jesus. And like all true gift giving, like the generous child at the parent's birthday or Christmas time, the giver of the gift, the parishioners who with the priest give the sacrifice of the Mass to God, in return flows an abundance of renewing grace. This is why it is still a "sacrifice" but it is also the "celebration" of the Mass.

I hope this analogy helps with understanding, and is also useful in discussing the faith with little children in your family.

Also, to my Muslim friends who might be reading as part of better understanding some of the mysteries of Christian faith, this sacrament does not refer to the generosity of alms giving (which rightly receives such mention in the Qur'an). Christians call that "charity" these days. This refers to sacrifice, or the giving of offerings, to God.