Its title, as is customary, is taken from the opening words of the Latin version of the text, which is rendered in the English translation as "The Church draws her life from the Eucharist".

On his 25th Holy Thursday as pope, he issued this encyclical instead, addressed to all Catholics: "to the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women in the consecrated life and all the lay faithful".

In Communion, Christ offers himself as nourishment, which "spurs us on our journey through history and plants a seed of living hope in our daily commitment to the work before us".

There are therefore important distinctions to be maintained when considering the communion rites of Protestants, here referred to as "the Ecclesial Communities which arose in the West from the sixteenth century onwards and are separated from the Catholic Church".

For all these reasons, concelebration or "Eucharistic sharing" with non-Catholic Christians is completely unacceptable, though communion maybe administered to non-Catholics in certain circumstances, to those who—and here John Paul quotes his earlier encyclical Ut Unum Sint—"greatly desire to receive these sacraments [Eucharist, Penance and Anointing of the Sick], freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes".

He underscores its value, warns that it must always correspond to the ineffable mystery of the Eucharist, and advises "careful review on the part of the competent ecclesiastical authorities", specifically the Holy See.

[2] Pastor Gilles Daudé, head of ecumenical relations for the Protestant Federation of France expressed concern that John Paul's fear that the Eucharist might not be accorded the full reverence it deserves may "freeze the advances on Eucharistic hospitality between Catholics and Protestants, even though those who practice it are often those who are best trained" and, ministry aside, "there are many more things that unite us than things that divide us".

[4] Considering the implications of Ecclesia for the relationship between the Catholic Church and evangelicals, Mark Noll wrote that it would resonate with those Protestants who adhere to the idea of the real presence rather than communion as a memorial, though all would welcome its reliance on Scripture.

He believed that "It is obvious that John Paul II teaches a Eucharist doctrine closer to what the Protestant reformers [Luther, Melancthon] themselves advocated than to what they condemned in the sixteenth century", including even his discussion of transubstantiation.