The Real Presence

The Catholic Church teaching that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus, not bread and wine, is clearly taught in the Bible and throughout the 2,000 year tradition of the Church. The teaching of Jesus in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel is very clear: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him (John 6:53-56 ).

The Jews disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Even though many disciples would not accept this teaching, Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said. Jesus made no attempt to correct "misunderstandings". This is the only record we have of any of Christ's followers leaving him for purely doctrinal reasons. Maybe both the Jews and some of his disciples would have remained with him had he said he was speaking on symbolically.

The early Church took this teaching seriously. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul says, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord...for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgement on himself." (1 Corinthians 11: 27, 29). Paul's words make sense only if the bread and wine have become the real body and blood of Christ.

The early Church Fathers also understood the Real Presence. St.Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of John, who was eaten by the beasts in Rome around 107 AD, wrote: "The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.". St. Justin the martyr wrote: "We have been taught that the food is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." He wrote this around 145 AD. The Council of Trent in 1551 defined that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, body and blood, soul and divinity.

"As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me" (John 6:57). The Greek word used for "eats" (trogon) is very blunt and is like "chewing" or "gnawing." This does not sound like the language of metaphor.

In a fifth-century homily, Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia seemed to be speaking to today's Evangelicals and Fundamentalists: "When (Christ) gave the bread he did not say, 'This is the symbol of my body,' but, 'This is my body.' In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, 'This is the symbol of my blood,' but 'This is my blood,' for he wanted us to look upon the (eucharistic elements), after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit, not according to their nature, but to receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1).

Receiving the Eucharist to me is such a holy gift that I am unworthy to receive it unless I am first healed.