The Eucharistic Prayer — What is it that we are praying for?

The Eucharistic Prayer is that long prayer that the priest says after the bread, wine, and gifts for the Church and poor are brought to the altar. For many, this prayer is so familiar that we may have lost track of what it is that we are praying for. Here is a brief review of the main parts of the Eucharistic Prayer: 

• Preface — after an opening dialog between priest and assembly (“The Lord be with you...”), the prayer praises God and offers the Church’s thanks for God’s saving work. 
• Holy, Holy, Holy — after the Preface we sing a biblical song* about the holiness of God.
• Naming the works of God — the priest continues singing God's praises in the first part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
  
• Epiclesis over bread and wine — an epiclesis is an invocation of the Holy Spirit to come upon someone or something. There is an epiclesis in every Sacrament. In the Eucharist, it happens twice. The first one comes at this point, before the consecration. The priest calls on the Holy Spirit to come upon the bread and wine so that they become Christ’s Body and Blood.  
• Consecration — next, the priest recites the account of the Last Supper. The technical term for this part of the prayer is "the Institution Narrative" because it retells the biblical narrative of Christ instituting the Eucharist.
• Memorial Acclamation — after consecrating the bread and wine, the priest invites us to proclaim the central mystery of our faith, which is how the death and resurrection of Jesus has provided for our salvation.
  
• Anamnesis — after the Memorial Acclamation, the priest recalls the mystery of Christ’s passion, saving death, resurrection, and ascension. The name of this part of the prayer may seem odd, but if you think of the word amnesia meaning the loss of memory, then its opposite would be anamnesia, meaning to retain memory.
• Offertory — then, the memorial sacrifice of Jesus’ Body and Blood is offered to the Father. That's right: technically speaking, the offertory comes after the Consecration! We recognize the great gift of Christ's Body and Blood and we offer it back to the Father because there can be no greater gift that we can give to the One who made us and holds our lives in loving hands.
• Epiclesis over the assembly — the priest’s second invocation of the Holy Spirit is upon the assembly, so that we may be united in faith and love and be the one Body of Christ at work in the world. 
• Intercessions — toward the end of the prayer, we offer prayers for the whole Church of God, living and dead, and ask that we be united with them in one communion of love, service, and praise.
• Doxology — the celebrant then sings a song of glory and praise to God ("Through him, with him, in him…"). Again, the name for this may seem odd, but ask any Protestant and they can tell you what a doxology is! Literally, the word means "words of worship."
  
• Great Amen — the prayer concludes with a hearty “Amen” sung by everyone in the assembly as we make the prayers of the priest our own by this acclamation of faith.

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*A significant portion of the Eucharistic Prayer — as well as most of the prayers of the Mass — are based on biblical texts. For an annotated version of the Order of Mass, download http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/WhiteBookAnnotated.pdf.