[The author discusses Christ’s presence as perceived and symbolized when an assembly gathers to celebrate Eucharist. Her article consists of four parts: (1) a brief review of recent official church documents on the modes of Christ’s presence; (2) an examination of how the relationship of Christ’s presence in the eucharistic species to his presence in the Church gathered for worship has been articulated in Christian tradition and in selected 20th-century writings; (3) a consideration of Michael Polanyi’s semiotics and Louis Marie Chauvet’s theology of symbol; and (4) an application of their thinking to key symbols in the gathering rite of the Roman liturgy.]