The Eucharist is Not Just a Symbol

INTRO

You may notice the shirt I’m wearing. “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” Flannery O’ Connor

I got the idea for it from Johnathan Roumie, who plays Jesus on the Chosen. When I saw him wearing it, I first thought “whoa, what’s he so mad about?” (To hell with it?) But then I heard the explanation for it, and I thought, “That’s perfect!” The double meaning of “to hell with it” is brilliant and says it all.

[Johnathan Roumie clip]

Today’s video is all about the meaning that stands behind these profound words.

The “it” that we’re talking about here is the Eucharist. This “it” represents the main boundary line between Catholics and Protestants. (Insert George Janko clip)

As a Catholic, it’s difficult for me to understand the Protestant point of view on transubstantiation, which is to say, I don’t understand their complete rejection of it. I mean, if you don’t believe that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, then why even go to church? [Fr. Mike – skip mass to eucharist clip] If God is not present, spirit and body, in that place, then why would I want to be? If it’s not a real sacrifice, then it’s not a real mass. I’ve been to Protestant services, where they meet in a rec. room and pass out bread and grape juice pantomiming the Last supper, while banjos and guitars are being played by guys in polo shirts and cargo shorts. To me, this is just yuppies cosplaying Christianity. Or maybe I got it wrong, and you actually go to some kind of megachurch – which is even more ridiculous, especially if the preacher is preaching some kind of prosperity gospel. When I go to church, I want to actually go to church. I want to hear an organ being played (or better yet hear Gregorian chant) in a cathedral, that’s sheer size and beauty can’t help but represent the glory and majesty of God and our adoration of him. Simply put, I go to church, not for bread, but for the bread of life. If you only think the Eucharist is symbolic, and you read scripture in such a way, then you’re more of a gnostic than a Christian.

The eucharist is perhaps the most important element in all of Christianity to understand (that is, if you are to fully understand what it truly means to be Christian), or as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” (1324) As of today, the Catholics and the Orthodox are the only ones who seem to get this point (well, them and the Satanists, but I will return to that near the end of this). And if I offend you, I would ask that you bear with me, because the full explanation of the power and meaning of the eucharist has never been put together in the way I am about to. My goal is to keep this all as simple as I possibly can while I cover the full breadth and width of a subject that is as theologically rich and relevant as any other foundational Christian belief.

FOUNDATION

To understand the eucharist, we need to go all the way back to the very beginning: in the Garden of Eden and the original sin. Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree. This disobedience was the first sin, and with it came the punishment of death. We are then told of two possible remedies for this action, in order to make things right with God. One is a temporary solution and of the earth, and the other is eternal and of heaven. The temporary one is animal sacrifice (a blood offering) (Gen 3:21), the eternal one is to eat from the tree of life (Gen 3:22).

Let’s first start with the temporary remedy for our sin: We read that after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they realized they were naked, and they felt shame. God then sacrificed an animal to provide them with a hide to wear, to “cover” their shame (i.e. to cover their sin) (Gen 3:21). And to continue to cover our sins, so to speak, we must continue to sacrifice animals to the Lord.

Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. They each offered a sacrifice to God, Cain offered fruit, while Abel offered an animal. Abel’s sacrifice was looked on favorably by God while Cain’s offering was rejected. This is what caused Cain to kill Abel and become the first murderer. (Gen. 4:1-8).

And we all remember the story of Abraham, when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Walking up the mountain, Isaac asked his father, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? To which Abraham faithfully replied, God will provide it. (Gen 22:7-8).

The sparing of Isaac’s life in this story foreshadows the first Passover. In the same way Abraham’s son was spared by the blood of a substitute animal, so, too, were the Israelite children spared in Egypt when the Israelites smeared lambs’ blood on their door posts, in order to tell death to pass over them and spare them during the 10th plague.  

What is more, when Moses received the Law from God, the precise procedure for making sacrificial offerings to Him, and their ability to cover our sin, is laid out in painstaking detail. How and why the Levitical priests are to make their sin offerings to God is revealed in the Torah. But our relationship with God is not one sided. It is not only us, who is offering something to him, it is He who is providing for us as well. When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness and the Levitical priests were making the appropriate sacrifices to the Lord, God was providing them with manna from heaven, giving them their daily bread to eat.

There is this sort of transactional relationship between God and man. This is symbolized by the first priest mentioned in the Bible, the King of Salem, Melchizedek. We read how he brought out bread and wine for Abram, and Abram gave to him (as the earthly representative of the Most High God) a tenth of what he had.

All of what I just said – original sin, the tree of life, sacrifices to cover sin, the Passover lamb, the bloody door posts, a priest of the Most High God who brings out bread and wine, and God providing bread from heaven to those wandering in the wilderness – all act as the foundation of the Eucharist, and by extension, act as the bedrock of Christianity as a whole.

JESUS CONNECTION

Now enter Jesus…

Going back to the beginning, Jesus is the new Adam. Where Adam was tempted by Satan and sinned, eating what he shouldn’t. Jesus is tempted by Satan, and doesn’t sin, and instead fasts. Like Satan offering the forbidden fruit to Adam, he offers a very hungry Jesus some bread. To which Jesus replied, “man cannot live on bread alone” (Luke 4:4).

As I already said, when Abraham and Isaac were walking up the mountain, Isaac asked his father where the lamb was for the sacrifice? To which Abraham faithfully replied, God will provide it. In that same story we read that God actually provided a ram for the sacrifice in Isaac’s stead. So where is the lamb to which Abraham was referring?

This story is one of those stories from the Old Testament that non-believers always cite to try to convince you that God is malevolent or at the very least capricious in how he acts. Like how could he ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? That is just cruel. These sentiments reveal that non-believers are missing the larger point. These actions are not wrathful or impulsive, they are emblematic of perfect justice and mercy. As for the justice, let’s look at that, God gave Adam and Eve one commandment: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He then tells them the punishment for such an action: “You will surely die.” In other words, God gives man a fair rule, and tells him of the punishment for it. Man then disobeys God, and thus, must pay for the crime. This is, by definition, justice. The mercy part comes in, because God shows us that he would never ask something of us that he isn’t willing to do himself. This is the heart of the Eucharist. Stay with me.

It's not Abraham that has to sacrifice his son for God, but rather it is God who sacrifices his Son for us.

When John the Baptist first greets Jesus in the river Jordan he says, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) As such, Jesus is clearly the lamb to which Abraham was referring. And connecting this altogether, it’s no coincidence that Jesus’ Last Supper takes place at Passover – a feast day in remembrance of the Israelites in Egypt, which is celebrated by sacrificing “a lamb without blemish” (Exodus 12:5), smearing its blood on the doorposts, and consuming it. This action, we are told, is how one is spared death; that is, death passes over those that do this.

Much like Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, Jesus, too, brings out bread and wine. In Mark’s Gospel we read:

And as they did eat, Jesus took bread and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many” (Mark 14:22-24).

And in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the apostles, “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).

This was not the first time Jesus gave bread to his followers to eat. He had already fed 5000 with just five loaves and two fishes. That action was to show that much like God providing manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, so, too, does Jesus feed the multitude who follow him. Mark’s Gospel alludes to this connection when Jesus’ disciples say to him, “From whence can a man satisfy the men with bread here in the wilderness?” (Mark 8:4). Nonetheless, this offering of bread to the multitude is different than the bread that is offered at the Last Supper. The former was offered to satiate earthly hunger, while the latter bread was satisfying a heavenly need.

You see, more than just bread or a symbol, the Eucharist is a true sacrifice – because it has to be, or Christianity is completely meaningless. In the book of Isaiah we read that the gentiles will become the new Levitical priests. This tells us that Christians, too, will have to make a true sacrifice at the altar. (Isaiah 66:21). As I already said, the punishment for sin (death) must occur for justice to happen; yet, the fact that the punishment for man is taken on by God himself in the form of man is proof of God’s unfathomable mercy. This is why the Eucharist can’t be just bread – because if it is, there is no justice and there is no mercy. If Jesus’ sacrifice is not done in a way that fulfills Old Testament prophecy in ways beyond all mathematical probability, then it is not divine. And if it’s not divine, then it’s just a symbol. And if it’s just a symbol to hell with it.

After everything I just said about the scriptural foundation upon which the Eucharist is built, you may intellectually understand exactly what I’m saying and appreciate the literary connections and cross references I’ve made, but in terms of spiritually understanding the Eucharist, which is to say believing in transubstantiation, you are still at a loss. This gap in understanding represents the difference between the temporary remedy for sin, and the eternal remedy for sin I addressed earlier.

Jesus made this distinction very clear, so that there would be no confusion about, not only what the Eucharist represents symbolically, but what it actually is, in the flesh, so to speak. Our Lord said to his followers:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him God the father sealed. (John 6:26-27)

Jesus continues: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world… I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

It is at this point that people began murmuring against him. “Murmur not among yourselves,” Jesus commanded. He then double-downed on his teaching. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:43,51)   

This all seems quite clear. Jesus is the sacrificial pass over lamb. His death on the cross is the blood on the door posts that tells death to pass over us. Notice Jesus begins this teaching by distinguishing between the perishable bread of this world, and the eternal bread of life, which he himself represents. To eat of the eternal bread, is to consume his flesh. Make no bones about it. Simply put, the perishable bread is tantamount to the temporary remedy for sin, and consuming the body of Christ as the bread of life is tantamount to the eternal remedy for sin – the eating from the tree of life. We are reminded of the Hail Mary Prayer: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.” Jesus is the fruit of the Tree of Life that we must consume in order to conquer death. This is the merciful solution for the just punishment of our sin.

It’s fair to say, in spite of everything already said, this idea of consuming the Lord’s flesh and blood is hard to swallow, as it were. You see, the issue is less about whether or not this is just a symbol, and more about, a lack of faith in God. Scripture highlights this misunderstanding. We read, “The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Then Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you…This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” (John 6:52-53,58).

Jesus is making himself abundantly clear. When he says that this bread is his body, he is not speaking symbolically. He is speaking literally. Just as it is now, those who claim to follow Christ, cannot accept this teaching. We read, “Many therefore of his disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, ‘Doth this offend you?’ (John 6:60-61) ‘But there are some of you that believe not’” (John 6:64)

There is no mistaking the meaning here. For many of his followers, Jesus’s teaching on the Eucharist was too hard to accept, which surely wouldn’t be true if he were only speaking symbolically. Fittingly, it is passage 6:66 of John’s Gospel, where those who can’t accept the truth of the Eucharist turn their back on Christ: 

“From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.” (John 6:66)

The meaning is clear: either believe in transubstantiation or turn your back on Christ and the Gospel.

From the very beginning, to be a Christian is to believe in the eucharist. In the Book of Acts we read of the earliest Christians: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking bread and prayers.” (Acts 2:42).

Writing in the early 50s AD to the church he set up in Corinth, Paul emphasized the importance of the Eucharist, saying:

“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, ‘Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.’ After the same manner also he took the cup, when had supped, saying, ‘This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft ye drink it, in remembrance of me.’ “(1 Cor. 11:23-25)

We can see that the Eucharist debate continued on into the second century. Church Father Ignatius of Antioch wrote of the opponents to the Eucharist in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, saying, “They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ who suffered for our sins, whom the father raised up by his goodness. Therefore they oppose the gift of God, being disputers, they die.” (Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 7.1)

The Eucharist is a foundational Christian belief, but the debate over its meaning hasn’t ceased since Jesus uttered the words, “This is my body.” The fight over these words reached a fever pitch in the fifteenth century during the Protestant Reformation. The Protestants rejected the supernatural and miraculous elements of the Catholic Church. In fact, the term “Hocus Pocus” comes from the Protestant insult leveled against Catholics. During the moment of transubstantiation in the Latin Mass, the priest says “Hoc est corpus meum” (“this is my body”) Hocus Pocus was a flippant derision of this sacred moment, lowering it to the level of a ridiculous magic spell. From then on, the Protestants claimed the Eucharist was merely a symbol, and no priest had the power to change bread into flesh. To our modern sensibilities, this seems like a logical conclusion to draw. The bread looks like wafer before and after the priest says a prayer over it – how can we say it changed into the Lord’s body?

This is where it all gets very interesting. What if I told you priests really can change bread into flesh? That would change everything wouldn’t it? It would not only end this debate, but many others as well.

Before we get into Eucharistic miracles, however, I want us first to take a step back and address something I find very interesting about the power of the eucharist. I find it extremely ironic that Protestants don’t believe in the Eucharist, but Satanists do.

The late great Fr. Beard points out the glaring truth, that Satanists believe the Eucharist is really the Body of Christ, because they know who their enemy is. And Fr. Donald Calloway speaks of how vigilant he must be at mass in order to keep the sacred Host out of the hands of occultists and devil worshippers, who try to steal it and use it for their rituals and practices, such as we saw this past week, when a group of Satanists held a black mass to mock Catholicism outside of the Kansas State House. While standing on the State House steps, the Satanist leader spoke some curse while holding a Host in the air. After which, he threw it to the ground. But wouldn’t you know it just as he was about to step on it and desecrate it. An angel from the crowd, which is to say a brave Christian bystander, swooped in and consumed the Host – the body of Christ – before it could be harmed. There are supernatural forces at work here. Anyone who denies this fact, is going to look foolish in the end.

It's a poignant irony that some Christians have a hard time understanding the power of the Eucharist, when even Satanists can see.

Like I said, if priests really can change bread into the body of Christ then that changes everything… and I mean everything.

[Fr with Matt Fradd about Eucharist]

That’s a really important point that Fr. Seraphim just made, if or when another religion claims or claimed a miracle, it would still fall under the umbrella of Christian belief. Like for instance, say if someone said, “Ouija boards work,” or “Voodoo dolls are real,” or someone in Islam claimed that a prayer to God (the God of Abraham) cured someone, the Christian faith would not be shaken by this at all. It would just confirm our belief in demons, or God’s intercession, just like the Bible teaches. But on the other hand, if the Christian belief in the Eucharist is proven to be true, then every other religion on the planet is proven false in an instant. Because in no other religion outside of Christianity (more particularly Catholicism and Orthodox) would a Eucharistic miracle not destroy their entire belief structure. Because if the Eucharist is real, then Jesus Christ really is the Son of God, and his priests really do have the power to turn bread into his body through a simple prayer powered by the Holy Spirit. That being said, I want us now to look closer at some of these Eucharistic miracles, the commonalities they all share, and the power of the priest to turn the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

[Commanalities]

[Most famous one + Fr. Alar]

Amazing indeed. All the evidence points to the reality of transubstantiation. Scripture tells us explicitly that Jesus was speaking literally when he said that the bread was his body, and over a hundred confirmed eucharistic miracles back up this audacious claim. Nonetheless, the same doubt and confusion that surrounded the Eucharist two thousand years ago is still around today. Certain Christian influencers have made some bold statements recently (George Janko (Ruslan?) (Scott Hahn on Lila Rose), and shortly thereafter, the Lord showed them the error of their ways. I’m not sure where George Janko stands now regarding his belief (or lack thereof) in the Eucharist, and I admit that this can at times seem like a difficult theological doctrine to wrap one’s head around, nonetheless, without the Eucharist you will never truly have Jesus.  

[Fr. Mike Schmitz clip]  

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to two men on the road to Emmaus. We read that “their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, ‘What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another as ye walk and are sad?’ And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, ‘Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass in these days?’ And he said unto them, ‘What things?’ And they said unto him, ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people’… And they drew nigh unto the village whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, ‘Abide with us: for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. And he went to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.’” (Luke 24:16-19, 28-31)

When you connect this passage with those of Melchizedek, you begin to see the larger point. When we see Melchizedek in Genesis we read how he brought out bread and wine. When Abram is blessed by this man, we are shown who the God of Abraham really is. We read that Melchizedek is a priest of the Most High God, therefore, since Abraham is being blessed by this man and giving him tithes, Abraham clearly worships the Most High God. Or to put an even finer point on it, when this priest of God brings out bread and wine, we are shown exactly who God is.

What is more, we read in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is “a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6).

So it makes sense that when Jesus brought out the bread and wine for Cleopas and his companion, their eyes, too, were opened, and they could finally see who God is, so to speak.

PRECONCLUSION – Don’t Consume the Life Giving Bread in Mortal Sin

And I just want to address one final point before I conclude this. As beneficial as communion is for confessed Christians, so, too, is the power of the curse that will be left upon any, who consumes it while in a state of mortal sin. As Paul writes: “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Cor. 11:27).

[Insert Exorcist priest clip]

CONCLUSION

The word Testament means covenant or agreement. Accordingly, there are two such agreements in the Bible – an Old Testament and a New Testament. As I stated earlier there are two remedies for original sin. One is temporary and earthly, and the other is eternal and heavenly. The former has to do with animal sacrifice, which is a natural and outward, external action, and the latter has to do with eating from the tree of life, which is supernatural and more of inward, internal action. The Old Testament represents the temporary remedy for sin, (i.e. the Law of Moses) while the New Testament represents the eternal remedy for sin (i.e. the Body of Christ).

According to the Old Agreement, we need to sacrifice sin offerings to cover our shame and tell death to “Passover” us. But in the new agreement, we have the greatest sacrifice that could ever be offered – the ultimate lamb without blemish – the blood smeared on the door posts – our Lord on the cross, defeating death for us, once and for all. To eat of his flesh and to drink of his blood is to be in communion with him, as he sacrifices himself for us at every mass.

Do you want to keep paying the monthly minimum or do you want to finally pay off the entire debt. This is the difference between the Old Agreement and the New – the Old Testament and the New. Jesus tells Satan that man cannot live on bread alone, yet there are saints (like Saint Catherine of Siena) who went for decades eating nothing but the eucharist. Thus, the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that the eucharist is not bread alone. It is the living bread. It is the Word made flesh. It is our Lord Jesus Christ.