Is The Eucharist Just a Symbol Or Is It The Body And Blood Of Jesus?

Question:  I was chatting with some of my friends who are Protestants, and we were talking about the Eucharist. I was pointing out to them that the Eucharist is really the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. I even pointed them to John Chapter 6, but they said that Jesus was not speaking literally and that the Eucharist is only a representation or a symbol of Jesus. What else can I tell them?



ANSWER: Many Protestants – if not all of them – struggle with John Chapter 6 and with the Catholic Church’s teachings and belief in the Eucharist. Protestants believe that Jesus was not speaking literally and that he was speaking, maybe in parables as he usually did. But if you carefully read that chapter (John ch 6), you cannot help but realize that Jesus had several opportunities to clarify the situation and to explain himself, but he did not. Each time he was challenged by his listeners about what he said, instead of backing out and saying something like, ‘I did not mean that literally’, he went deeper into what he was saying. Till it eventually got to the point that many walked away from him saying, “This is intolerable language!”

Also, there have been several times in the Bible, where after a parable or a teaching, Jesus would call those closest to him away, and explain the parable or the teaching. He did not do that in this instance. In fact, he tuned to the twelve and asked, “what about you? Will you also leave?” And Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

All of the early Christians believed that the Eucharist was/is the real presence of Jesus Christ, including St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10:15-17.  Here, St. Paul uses the plainest language available to say, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a partaking of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not a partaking of the body of Christ?” And then 1 Corinthians 11:27-29, “If you eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, you are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”  There is no ambiguity here! This is plain language. St Paul continues, “So let a man examine himself to see whether he’s in the faith, because if a person eats the bread of the Lord or drink the cup unworthily, they eat and drink condemnation to themselves, because they did not recognize the body of the Lord.”

The language that Paul uses there is about as plain as day. It doesn’t get clearer than that. He believed that it was really the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice he didn’t say: “Jesus actually meant ‘This represents my body.’ No! No! He said: “because they did not recognize the body of the Lord.”

An added point here is that from the very earliest Christian documents that exists, the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Eucharist has always been professed and believed and lived among early Christians.   Examples of such writings are those written by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who in his letter to the Smyrnians, wrote, “The heretics – they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they deny that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the same flesh which suffered for all our salvation.”

So the earliest Christians believed it as well. It was not until a long time into the future, that we find people who did not believe. So to conclude, why would I accept the word of anyone, over that of Jesus Christ, or St. Paul, or over St. Ignatius of Antioch, and all Christians, basically for the first 1500 years of the Christian era?  The Eucharist is what the Catholic Church says and teaches that it is – the Body and the Blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.