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THE HOLY EUCHARIST
The holy Eucharist is the main leg that the Catholic Church stands upon. This celebration is a result of Jesus' own words when he spoke of his flesh and blood being necessary for salvation. The Catholic Church has always taught its members that the holy Eucharist is TRULY THE REAL BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. It is sad to hear members of the Catholic Church deny this process to others. I have heard many variations of what the Eucharist is by people who claim to be part of the church. Some argue that it is only representative of the true body and blood. Others go so far as to say that the Eucharist is simply a blessed meal that represents the last supper. While both of these main arguments are tragically wrong, they contain some element of truth in them. Unfortunately falsities that are convincing always contain some percentage of truth in them. The more truth false statement have in them the more believable they become. Here I will display the crucial elements and other evidence that the Eucharist did truly exist at the time of the early church and was a tradition handed down from directly from the apostles.
The first thing we must do is examine the strain of evidence that the Eucharist is a valid and solid tradition created by Christ. One thing that many scholars and non Catholic say in rebuttal to the Eucharist is the fact that Christ never used the specific word Eucharist. However, there are many words we use today to describe biblical truths that never appear in the bible. For example the word trinity. This is used to describe the fact that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons in one God. We never see the word trinity to describe anything within the bible. This is a word that was linked to specific biblical truths. In the same way, we need to look at the actual evidence that this even took place and how it was handed down by the direct teachings of the apostles.
The first obvious evidence for this is the many times quoted scripture verse from the Gospel of John in chapter 6 verses 48-69.
"I am the bread of life. 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. 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." The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "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 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. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father." As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." "
The first thing we must take a look at is where Jesus was at teaching this message. Scripture here tells us that he was speaking directly in the synagogue in Capernaum. Here Jesus compared himself to bread and directly told them that he is the bread of life. The very next thing is stated was how the Jews started saying "how can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus didn't tell them they were wrong for thinking this. The next thing he says is that you must do this. He did not say that they were wrong for thinking that they should eat his flesh. Instead of correcting them, Jesus told them not only was he going to give them his flesh to eat, but they must eat it for eternal life. Jesus then goes further in his explanation He says that His flesh is REAL food and his blood is REAL drink. If he was speaking figuratively, then there is no reason to continue thinking this after Jesus spoke this way. Jesus didn't mince words with people when he was speaking to them about spiritual truths. He used parables and stories, but in this teaching we see Jesus directly saying that the body and blood that he is going to give the world to eat and drink is very real indeed.
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Now why are many of the disciples nervous about this teaching? One thing was very obvious in the fact that Jesus almost is talking about cannibalism here. They simply didn't understand what he was trying to tell them. Secondly, the Jewish people had direct laws that forbid them from eating the flesh of another human, or even drinking any type of blood. In fact all of their food had (and still has) to be prepared in a specific way as to not have any blood in the food that they eat. This was Mosaic Law. Every Jewish person was required by God himself to follow those laws. So when Jesus starts talking to the people that were following him around for the last few years about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, many of them became shocked and unaware of the teachings he was trying to tell them. They immediately begin to grumble among themselves and asking questions as to what Jesus really said. Notice another thing here is that scripture tells us that disciples left him and returned to their former way of life. Who are disciples? Disciples of Jesus were people who had left their way of life to follow Jesus around and listen to his teachings. These men were men who had heard Jesus speak in parables and likeness of other things many times as he was teaching them. They knew how Jesus taught. If Jesus was speaking figuratively as he did with other teachings, then why did disciples leave? Why did men who had left their very livelihood to suddenly get up and leave him where he stood? The answer to this is simple. Jesus was not speaking figuratively or hypothetically. He is speaking in very real terms.
Was this biblical truth taught by the apostles? The answer to this is most definitely YES. St. Paul speaks about it directly in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 17-29:
"In giving this instruction, I do not praise the fact that your meetings are doing more harm than good. First of all, I hear that when you meet as a church there are divisions among you, and to a degree I believe it; there have to be factions among you in order that (also) those who are approved among you may become known. When you meet in one place, then, it is not to eat the Lord's supper, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own supper, and one goes hungry while another gets drunk. Do you not have houses in which you can eat and drink? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and make those who have nothing feel ashamed? What can I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this matter I do not praise you. For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. 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. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. "
Here we see a direct teaching from St. Paul himself. Here St. Paul has heard that there were divisions among the people in the church at Corinth. St. Paul has heard that people are getting together and instead of celebrating the Lord's supper, they are just getting together to eat and they call it the Lord's supper. They are simply just eating some food and some of them are even going so far as to get drunk at these meetings. Paul directly tells them that he is displeased with this and tells them to go home to eat instead of eating and drinking when they get together. He also says that what he received from the Lord is what he taught them. St. Paul tells them that they are eating bread and drinking the cup of the Lord himself, and that if they receive either of these unworthily then they will need to answer directly to the Lord, and that the person only eats and drinks judgment upon himself. This sounds like a serious violation indeed. St. Paul tells the church very specifically this. Therefore one must assume that they were disrespecting the holy Eucharist in the church in Corinth, and St. Paul considered it such a grievous error he decided to write to the church and address it specifically.
Was this biblical truth taught and practiced by the early church? The answer to this is also definitely YES. St. Ignatius of Antioch was a bishop to the holy see in Syria. He was one of the first church bishops that wrote many letters to other churches telling them to be true to the bishops of the day. St. Ignatius was brought to Rome to die as a martyr by being eaten alive by lions because of the Christian faith. It has been said through tradition that St. Ignatius was ordained by St. Peter himself. St. Ignatius had some things to say about the holy Eucharist as well.
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"Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons."
(St. Ignatius' letter to the Philadelphians 4,1 ~110 AD)
"They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes."
(St. Ignatius' letter to the Smyrnaeans 7,1 ~110 AD)
"You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. Nor is it permitted without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate the agape."
(St. Ignatius' letter to the Smyrnaeans 8,1 ~110 AD)
St. Justin was also a martyr for the faith. He to wrote about the Eucharist as a very valid and holy thing.
"We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has beenwashed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [Baptism], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus."
(St. Justin's apology #1 66 ~151 AD)
Through these writings of the early church fathers, teachings written within scripture by the apostles, and direct teachings from Jesus himself, we can see that the Eucharist is in fact a very real and justified thing. It was taught by Jesus, it was taught by the apostles, and it was taught by their disciples. It has been argued that the doctrine of the real presence or transubstantiation did not come into affect until much later in church history. The fact of the matter is many traditions were never written down as official teachings until the church found a need for it. If all the early churches did it, then why would the church feel the need to write it down. Eventually through heresy and other forms of dissension, many of the early popes and bishops began writing them down as a way to keep solid to the traditions handed down directly through the apostles. As we can see with the early church father's writings above, the idea of the Eucharist and thought of it as a very real, sacred and holy tradition. This is the reason you don't see the official doctrine until Pope Gregory the Great around the 6th century. There simply was not a reason to write it down until people began to not believe the traditions of the early fathers or the apostles. Making it an official doctrine wrote it in stone so to speak as an official teaching of the church.
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