Defending the Catholic Faith: The Eucharist

For many people, the Eucharist is not only a hard concept to get their minds wrapped around, but is also considered absurd and completely false. At the Last Supper so many years ago, Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of Me," referring to his actions of sharing the bread and wine at the meal they were eating. This tradition has been passed down throughout ages "in remembrance" of Him, but what is supposed to be eaten at the meal? What kind of bread are we supposed to consume?

Most of the answers to this question and questions about the Eucharist can be found in the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Catholics believe that during Mass, the bread and wine are transubstantiated into Jesus' real body and blood. The bread and wine are not just a symbol for them, rather, they are actually Jesus' body and blood. Jesus does explain this in the Bible and it is written in the Gospel of John.

One of the things that Jesus says to his disciples in John, Chapter 6, is this: "Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die (John 6:49-50)." Breaking this verse apart, we see that Jesus is not referring to any ordinary bread. He says that the bread that his disciples' ancestors ate was not sufficient enough because they died.

So the bread that we should eat when celebrating the Mass is not any ordinary bread; however, what type of bread can we eat that will give us the ability to not die? The answer is found a few verses down in John 6: 51. Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." This verse in John does have a lot of meaning in it, so let's unpack it. Jesus calls himself the "living bread" and says that whoever eats this "living bread" will live forever. We saw in the previous paragraph that Jesus told us how the bread that we should be eating will give us the ability to live forever. That means that the bread we should eat when celebrating the Mass comes from Jesus, since that is the type of bread that will enable us to live forever. Jesus goes on to say that the bread is his own flesh. So not only will the bread that we are supposed to be consuming give us the ability to live forever, but in reality, it is Jesus' own flesh that we are eating. For many people this is hard to understand; some of Jesus' own disciples had trouble with this teaching.

Jesus reinforces these two points later on in verses 53 through 55. In verse 55, Jesus says that "my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink," referring to his body and blood that is consumed during the sacrifice of the Mass. In verse 54, we see that Jesus reinforces the point that his flesh and his blood will give eternal life to anyone who eats of it. In addition, He also says that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you." These verses basically serve to reiterate everything that was stated previously. Jesus says that you need to eat his own flesh and drink his blood.

Yes, Jesus' specific teaching on the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood is not an easy teaching to understand. However, Jesus did command his people to do this; Catholics celebrate this and take part in it by taking part in the sacrifice of the Mass, which involves the changing of the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine into the extraordinary bread, which is Jesus' flesh, and the extraordinary wine, which is Jesus' blood. Reflecting on Jesus' teaching in the Gospel of John will point to the understanding that you need in order to comprehend what He commands us to do. It will ultimately lead to the truth and existence of the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic Celebration of the Mass.

*Verses quoted from the Gospel of John were taken from The New American Bible version.