The Eucharist: It's Not Just A Symbol

I can't seem to remember exactly when it was that it clicked for me, the truth of the Eucharist. I'm not even sure what ended up pushing me to the edge of accepting this teaching that was in complete opposition of the church I was raised in. What I do remember though was that I was in high school. I was armed with my Catechism that I had bought off Amazon because an article from Google told me to, and a rosary that my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, had given to me before he left to study at Franciscan University.

I would stay up late in the night on my phone reading article after article about Catholic teaching and how it differed from my beliefs as a non-denominational Protestant. The veneration of Mary and the saints, the pope and the priesthood, confession, purgatory, and more. I was learning so many things, and my previous notion that the Catholic faith was somewhat outrageous and not at all based in Scripture, was fading away day by day. Eventually my search to disprove the claims of the Catholic Church in favor of the faith I was raised on turned into a ravenous hunger for the Church's teachings that ignited something in me, and made me feel truly alive for the very first time, even though it was threatening to turn my life completely upside down. 

My complete conversion story is something I'd like to save for another time and another place, but all of this is to say that a lot of the Church's doctrine that differed from what I previously knew did not end up being big points of contention for me. Even the veneration of Mary, even though having a relationship with her has been difficult for me because it seemed so foreign, it wasn't overly difficult for me to agree that Jesus would want us to honor her as he does. What I couldn't move on from easily though, was the Catholic Church's teaching on the Eucharist.

Because in my heart, if the Catholic Church was really right, and they truly had the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, then that was everything to me. I was willing to take a step of faith and trust that the Church was right in every other teaching if they were right in this essential, life giving, world changing truth. 

Before I jump in to the main portion of my post I'd like to define some terms and offer a few disclaimers, for anyone who may be unsure of what it is I'm actually talking about. 

The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus instituted the Eucharist during the Last Supper, the night before his Crucifixion, and that it is, once consecrated by the priest, the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is also referred to as Holy Communion, or the Blessed Sacrament, in the Catholic Church. Eucharist is a Greek word that means "thanksgiving". 

Many Protestant denominations (not all), but most, believe that what Jesus instituted on the night of the Last Supper, was merely a symbol used to foreshadow the Paschal Mystery. They believe that it is truly just bread and just wine (or grape juice), that they partake in every Sunday or every once in a while to remember Christ's sacrifice. 

The purpose of this post is to explain what arguments led to my conversion from seeing communion as a symbol, to my passionate acceptance that Jesus Christ is wholly present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist. 

I would also like to add that none of the points I will be making are my own original ideas, and how could they be? The Catholic Church has been teaching about the Real Presence in the Eucharist for thousands of years. Priests, apologists, theologians and scholars have been studying this topic for millenia! Isn't that just what makes the Church so beautiful though? There are so many holy people and great thinkers that have come before us that have lain the groundwork and given us the information we need in order to defend our faith and then some. 

1. The Old Fulfilled in the New

Typology is a word that refers to the understanding that there are many events in the Old Testament (type) that pre-figure similar events that occur in the New Testament (anti-type). These Old Testament events are fulfilled more perfectly in the New Testament. Some examples include Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah that prefigures Christ's Crucifixion, Jonah's three days in the belly of the whale as the three days between Christ's death and Resurrection, and the great flood as a figure of baptism, just to name a few. But what is always true about these types and anti-types, is that the anti-type is always more significant. 

There is an event in the Old Testament that prefigures the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Jesus even explicitly referred to it in Bread of Life discourse, which I will be mentioning later on. It is the manna from heaven that fed the Israelites for forty years in the desert. No doubt a miracle! This is way more miraculous than a piece of bread meant to serve no other purpose than as a symbol. Could it be that this is the one instance where the type greatly outweighs the anti-type in terms of significance? Did God provide manna from heaven to sustain a few million of his people to only prefigure what many of us now view as merely a symbol, and not the true Body and Blood of his Son that sacrificed his life for us? Personally, I don't see how that could be the case.

2. New Covenant Passover 

Reading the New Testament in light of what we already know from the Old Testament is essential when it comes to studying the Bible. It is so easy to take the events we read about at face value and neglect to do further studying into the context of what is actually going on. When it comes to the Last Supper, it is best seen through the light of what occasion Jesus and his disciples were even gathering for, which is the Jewish feast of Passover. Scott Hahn does a great job of illuminating the events of the Last Supper in light of the Passover in his book A Father who Keeps His Promises. I urge you to take a look for yourself, in the chapter titled "It is Finished: The Son Fulfills the Father's Promises", as I will not be able to summarize it quite as nicely or as in depth as the original author. 

When Jesus said "It is finished" before his death, what did he mean? What was to have been finished in that moment? It can't have been our salvation, because in Romans 4:25, Paul teaches that our redemption was not complete until the resurrection of Jesus. 

If we look closer at these events in light of the Passover, it will become clear that what Jesus claims to have been finished in that moment is the Passover meal that they had begun, but never finished, in the Upper Room. Once he had finally drank the "fourth cup", the sour wine, he successfully transformed the Passover of the Old Covenant into the New Covenant Passover. 

In fact, there are multiple parallels between the Passover and the description of Jesus' Passion. John 18:33-37 shows that as Jesus stood before Pilate, it was the day of preparation of the Passover on the sixth hour, which is when the priests traditionally began slaughtering the lambs for Passover. John also stated that Jesus' bones remained unbroken, just as Moses had described for the Passover lamb in Exodus 12:48. A sponge of hyssop and vinegar was held to Jesus' mouth (John 19:28), hyssop being the branch used for sprinkling the blood of the lamb for Passover. The same word for the garment Jesus had worn, "chiton", was also used to describe the tunic worn by the high priest when sacrificing (John 19:23-24, Exodus 28:4, Leviticus 16:4). Jesus is described as both our sacrificial lamb as well as our high priest. 

The connection between the Last Supper and Jesus' Passion through the context of the Passover is so crucial in understanding that Jesus was instituting the Eucharist for us to fully participate in the Body of Christ and not just treat it as a symbol for our salvation. The most important part of the Passover is eating the lamb. You couldn't just kill the lamb and refrain from eating. God instructed every Israelite family to kill the lamb, sprinkle its blood, and eat of it. This was the divine command from God meant to bring his people in communion with him. 

Jesus is our sacrificial lamb in more ways than just figuratively. God did not instruct his Son to die for the sins of all mankind on the sixth hour of the day of Passover to abolish it with a one-time sacrifice, but to fulfill it perfectly through the Christ who is our perpetual sacrificial lamb (Revelation 5:5-6), offering himself to us so that we can participate in the communion of the Trinity through eating of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. 

3. John 6

In the Bread of Life discourse that I mentioned earlier (John 6), Jesus emphatically states four times that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood to gain eternal life. If we look at how many of his followers left him after these statements, it begs a serious question. Why would so many people be so scandalized from this teaching and leave Jesus if it was merely a symbol? And, if Jesus meant it as only a symbol, why did he not stop his followers from leaving him if it was just a misunderstanding? Instead, Jesus continued to insist on the truth of his teaching and asked his disciples "will you leave me also?". 

Another support for this is the fact that the word "eat" does not exist in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. Instead, what Jesus would have been saying to his followers is that they must chew or gnaw on his flesh. His followers knew he meant it literally, and would not accept it, so they chose to leave him. It requires great faith to believe in the True Presence of the Eucharist, with our eyes we see a wafer, but through faith we know the way it appears to us is only a veil covering the truth that is the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

Paul truly seemed to emanate this understanding of the Eucharist when he wrote "the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16).

4. The Early Church

It seems to be a collective belief among Protestant Christians that the Early Church that was written about in the Bible was not the Catholic Church, but that the "man-made" church eventually imposed their own un-biblical beliefs later down the line. This belief is simply not true. 

Have you ever heard of St. Ignatius of Antioch? He was one of the earliest Christian martyrs, and he was killed for his beliefs in the Roman Coloseum. He was the Bishop of Antioch, appointed to his post by Peter, and an early disciple of St. John the Revelator, Jesus' disciple and the author of the fourth gospel. 

Ignatius wrote seven letters to churches on his way to Rome and his martyrdom. In Ignatius' letter to the Smyrnaeans, he references those who deny the True Presence as he states “from the Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.” St. Ignatius of Antioch clearly did not take Jesus' words in John 6 or during the Last Supper symbolically, instead he speaks against those who do! If St. Ignatius, someone who had personal relationships with Jesus' disciples, believed in the True Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, wouldn't that make it feasible, or even unquestionable, that Jesus' disciples did too?

This is only one snapshot of the puzzle piece, one example of the writings of a saint from the Early Church that shows what they taught and believed in. Deeper study would only continue to reveal more examples of the one I have already shown you. 

If you are Catholic and already believe in the True Presence of the Eucharist, I hope the support I offered in this blog can serve as a starting point for your study on how to learn to defend your faith. If you are Catholic or Christian and do not believe in the True Presence of the Eucharist, I hope that what you read has ignited a flame in you to continue your search for the truth.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog, and may God bless you!