The Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist (with full Scriptural references)

Columbia ^

[NYer]

The Eucharist as a Sacrifice

1 Corinthians 10

14

Therefore, my beloved, shun the worship of idols.

15

I speak as to sensible men; judge for yourselves what I say.

16

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 a participation in the body of Christ?

17

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

18

Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

19

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

20

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.

21

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Note that some translations have ``communion'' in place of ``participation'' in verse 16. Notice also (v. 17) that the Eucharist is the bond that joins Christians as well as being a symbol of their unity. This agrees with the description of the first Christians in Acts 2:42, which implies that the eucharist was a cause of their unity: ``And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.''

Notice how St. Paul draws a parallel pagan sacrifices and the Eucharist; the former is offered to demons, the latter to God: ``By eating the meat of animals offered to Yahweh, Jews participated in the sacrifice and worship in his honour; and by receiving the body and blood of the Lord, Christians unite themselves to Christ; similarly, those who take part in idolatrous banquets are associating themselves not with false gods--which have no existence-- but with demons.'' (Navarre Bible, commentary on vv. 14-22) Thus, the Eucharist is a sacrifice to God.

This teaching of St. Paul also brings out the full meaning of chapter seven of the Letter to the Hebrews, in which Christ is called ``a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek'' (cf. Psalm 110:4). Melchizedek offered bread and wine as his sacrifice to God (Genesis 14:17-20), a sacrifice which foreshadowed Jesus' own sacrifice. For Christians, the Holy Eucharist is the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary. It is not a new sacrifice, but a continuation of our Lord's self-immolation, which transcends all time and place. In communion, a Christian receives our Lord and also offers himself to the Lord: it is an exchange of persons. To the early Christians this exchange must have been painfully obvious, since their participation in the Eucharistic feast implied their willingness to confess Christ even to death.

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What Did the Earlist Christians Believe?

Why should we care what Christians in earlier ages believed? For one, the unity of the Christ's Church extends not only throughout the world, but throughout time. These truths have been handed down to us in Scripture, but also in the other writings of the first Christians, some of whom knew the Apostles personally. If these first Christians had incorrect doctrine, then they must have learned it wrong from the Apostles. Since our faith comes to us from the Apostles, Sacred Scripture can only be as correct as they are.

Let us examine what the earliest Christians writers have said about the real presence.

circa 110 A.D.: St. Ignatius of Antioch

Letter to the Romans 7,3

I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible.

Letter to the Philadephians 3,3 - 4

Do not err, my brethren,: if anyone follow a schismatic he will not inherit the kingdom of God. If any man walk about with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion. 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.

Letter to the Smyrnaeans 7

From Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His loving-kindness raised from the dead. And so, those who question the gift of God perish in their contentiousness. It would be better for them to have love, so as to share in the resurrection. It is proper, therefore, to avoid associating with such people and not to speak about them either in private or in public, but to study the Prophets attentively and, especially, the Gospel, in which the Passion is revealed to us and the Resurrection shown in its fulfillment. Shun division as the beginning of evil.

circa 150 A.D.: St. Justin Martyr,

First Apology, 66

St. Justin is talking about the Mass, and he has described the consecration and communion. Then he says

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 been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins annd for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor as 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 flesh and blood is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnated Jesus.

Second Apology, 41

"And the offering of fine flour, sirs," I said, "which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed, in remembrance of the suffering which He endured on behalf of those who are purified in soul from all iniquity, in order that we may at the same time thank God for having created the world, with all things therein, for the sake of man, and for delivering us from the evil in which we were, and for utterly overthrowing(4) principalities and powers by Him who suffered according to His will. Hence God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [prophets], as I said before,(5) about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: 'I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands: for, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, My name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering: for My name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord: but ye profane it.'(6) [So] He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name, and that you profane [it]. The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first(7) of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first.

circa 165 A.D.: St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Adversus Haereses Book 4, ch. 18, s. 5

Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned.(4) But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit.(5) For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread,(6) but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.

Adversus Haereses Book 5, ch. 2, ss. 2-3

2. But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body.(1) For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins."(2) And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills(3)). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.(4)

3. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made,(5) from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?--even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that "we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."(6) He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh;(7) but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones,--that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption,(8) because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness,(9) in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard to man. And might it not be the case, perhaps, as I have already observed, that for this purpose God permitted our resolution into the common dust of mortality,(10) that we, being instructed by every mode, may be accurate in all things for the future, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves?

circa 350 A.D.: St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Catecheses, Lecture 22, ss. 1,3-6,9
(cf. Lecture 19, s. 7; Lecture 23, ss. 20-23)

On the night he was betrayed out Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: ``Take, eat: this is my body.'' He took the cup, gave thanks and said: ``Take, drink: this is my blood.'' Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, This is my blood, who would dare to question and say that it is not his blood?

Therefore, is is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to us udner the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and one blood with him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.

Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life in you. This horrified them and they left him. Not understandoing his words ina spiritual way, they thought the Savior wished them to practice cannibalism.

Under the old dispensation there was showbread, but it came to an end with the old dispensation to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is bread from heaven and the cup of salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the body, the Word, to the sanctification of the soul.

Do not, then, regard the eucharistic elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact the body and blood of the Lord, as he himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you, be strong in faith.

You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man's heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spriritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.

May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that by contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

circa 390 A.D.: St. John Chrysostrom,

Homily 46 (commenting on John 6)

Therefore, in order that we may become of His Body, not in desire only, but also in very fact, let us become commingled with that Body. This, in truth, takes place by means of the food which He has given us as a gift, because He desire to prove the love which He has for us. It is for this reason that He shared Himself with us and has brought His Body down to our level, namely, that we might be one with Him as the body is joined with the head. This, in truth is characteristic of those who greatly love. Job, indeed, was implying this when he said of his servants--by whom he was loved with such an excess of love--that they desired to cleave to his flesh. In giving expression to the great love which they possessed, they said: `Who will give us of his flesh that we may be filled?' Moreover, Christ has done even this to spur us on to even greater love. And to show the love He has for us He has made it possible for those who desire, not merely to look upon Him, but even to touch Him and to consume Him and to fix their teeth in His Flesh and to be commingled with Him; in short, to fulfill all their love. Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and of the love which He has shown for us.

A more extensive list of early Christian writings on this topic

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Conclusion

Belief in the Real Presence is a universal and perennial teaching of the Catholic Church, that is to say, she has taught it everywhere and always, from her birth from the pierce side of our Lord down to the present day. No Christian denied it in the first millennium. Only in the eleventh century did anyone at all deny it. The Church immediately responded by reaffirming the perennial teaching by defending what she had received from the Lord. It wasn't until the Protestant Reformation fifteen centuries after Christ's death that rejection of the Real Presence gained a following of any significance. The Holy Spirit has protected the majority of the world's believers (Catholics and Orthodox) from error in this matter. (It is also worthwhile noting that not all Protestants deny the Real Presence.)

[NYer]

Ping!

[narses]

Ping.

[NYer]

The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: A Primer for Clueless Catholics

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And now it is time for me to prepare for Divine Liturgy where I will here the words of Institution chanted in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother and the Apostles.

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Aramaic Consecration

Byow mo how daq dom ha sho dee leh
ma' bed hy eh
nsa bel lah mo be dow qa dee sho to.
Ou ba rekh
ou qa desh
waq so
ou ya bel tal mee dow kad o mar:
Sab a khool meh neh kul khoon:
Ho no den ee tow faghro deel
day lo fy koun wah lof sagee hey
meh teq seh ou meh tee heb
lhoo so yo dhow beh was ha yeh dal 'o lam
'ol meen.

English Translation

On the day before his life-giving passion,
Jesus took bread in his holy hands.
He blessed,
sanctified,
broke,
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take and eat it, all of you:
This is my body
which is broken and delivered for you
and for many,
for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

[Salvation]

Wonderful!

[RichardMoore]

Thank you for this beautiful posting. I am off to assist at the Tridentine Mass.

[NYer]

The Holy Spirit has protected the majority of the world's believers (Catholics and Orthodox) from error in this matter.

Ping!

[NYer]

This article explores the scriptural basis of the Catholic claim that Jesus himself taught these things, as seen in the pages of Sacred Scripture. Further, this article examines the writings of early Christians to see what they believed and praticed.

Since this topic often surfaces on various threads, I thought you might be interested.

[WileyPink]

I'm curious...the commentator from your Catholic Bible says that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, Thus, the Eucharist is a sacrifice to God. Does that mean that the ONE sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross was not good enough and you have to make your sacrifice every week in order to be forgiven of your sins? And how does your 'sacrifice' pay a sin debt when you have to do it every week?

The Lord's Supper is a symbol of His broken body and His spilled blood. Jesus' body doesn't have to be broken and His blood spilled every week in order for my sins to be forgiven.

I don't mean any disrespect when I say this...but you folks have too much "stuff" to do in order to be accepted.

Jesus has already accepted me...just as I am. (Romans 5:8)

I'll stick to Scripture when Jesus said on the cross, "...it is finished...".(John 19:30a)

[Petrosius]

I'm curious...the commentator from your Catholic Bible says that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, Thus, the Eucharist is a sacrifice to God. Does that mean that the ONE sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross was not good enough and you have to make your sacrifice every week in order to be forgiven of your sins? And how does your 'sacrifice' pay a sin debt when you have to do it every week?

You do not understand. The Eucharist is the ONE sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross made present to us each day in the Mass. Kneeling before our Lord in the Eucharist I am kneeling before the cross on Calvary.

[NYer]

I'm curious...the commentator from your Catholic Bible says that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, Thus, the Eucharist is a sacrifice to God. Does that mean that the ONE sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross was not good enough and you have to make your sacrifice every week in order to be forgiven of your sins?

It is not another Sacrifice, but the same Sacrifice that He enacted 2000 years ago. It is not a "re-enactment" much as great battles are re-enacted for theatrical effect. It is an "enactment", the "same" enactment, re-presented to us (not represented to us, but "re-presented" to us ... enacted again while not being a second or another sacrifice. It is the same Sacrifice, with one exception: it is unbloody ... just as it was unbloody when He gathered His Apostles around Him at the very first Mass on the night He was betrayed and before He was crucified.

We are following our Lord's command in Jn 6:53 "Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes this well.

1396. "The unity of the Mystical Body: the Eucharist makes the Church.  Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ.  Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body - the Church.  Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body. [Cf. 1 Cor 12:13 .] The Eucharist fulfills this call: '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 a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread:' [1 Cor 10:16-17.]  If you are the body and members of Christ, then it is your sacrament that is placed on the table of the Lord; it is your sacrament that you receive. To that which you are you respond 'Amen' ('yes, it is true!') and by responding to it you assent to it. For you hear the words, 'the Body of Christ' and respond 'Amen.'  Be then a member of the Body of Christ that your Amen may be true. [St. Augustine, Sermon 272: PL 38, 1247.]"

And how does your 'sacrifice' pay a sin debt when you have to do it every week?

Small sins.

The Lord's Supper is a symbol of His broken body and His spilled blood. Jesus' body doesn't have to be broken and His blood spilled every week in order for my sins to be forgiven.

In Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor. 11:24-25, the translation of Jesus' words of consecration is "touto poieite tan eman anamnasin." Jesus literally said "offer this as my memorial sacrifice." The word “poiein” (do) refers to offering a sacrifice (see, e.g., Exodus 29:38-39, where God uses the same word – poieseis – regarding the sacrifice of the lambs on the altar). The word “anamnesis” (remembrance) also refers to a sacrifice which is really or actually made present in time by the power of God, as it reminds God of the actual event (see, e.g., Heb. 10:3; Num. 10:10). It is not just a memorial of a past event, but a past event made present in time.

In other words, the “sacrifice” is the “memorial” or “reminder.” If the Eucharist weren’t a sacrifice, Luke would have used the word “mnemosunon” (which is the word used to describe a nonsacrificial memorial. See, for example, Matt. 26:13; Mark 14:9; and especially Acts 10:4). So there are two memorials, one sacrificial (which Jesus instituted), and one non-sacrificial.

Lev. 24:7 uses the word "memorial" in Hebrew in the sacrificial sense - "azkarah" which means to actually make present (see Lev. 2:2,9,16;5:12;6:5; Num.5:26 where “azkarah” refers to sacrifices that are currently offered and thus present in time). Jesus' instruction to offer the bread and wine (which He changed into His body and blood) as a "memorial offering" demonstrates that the offering of His body and blood is made present in time over and over again.

Also with Num. 10:10, in this verse, "remembrance" refers to a sacrifice, not just a symbolic memorial. So Jesus' command to offer the memorial “in remembrance” of Him demonstrates that the memorial offering is indeed a sacrifice currently offered. It is a re-presentation of the actual sacrifice made present in time. It is as if the curtain of history is drawn and Calvary is made present to us.

In Mal. 1:10-11, Jesus' command to his apostles to offer His memorial sacrifice of bread and wine which becomes His body and blood fulfills the prophecy that God would reject the Jewish sacrifices and receive a pure sacrifice offered in every place. This pure sacrifice of Christ is sacramentally re-presented from the rising of the sun to its setting in every place, as Malachi prophesied.

[lastchance]

Thank you for the post.

[CincinnatiKid]

Ping!!! “My Lord and my God” - St. Thomas

[Titanites]

The Lord's Supper is a symbol of His broken body and His spilled blood

I'll stick to Scripture when Jesus said "Take, eat; this is My body." (Matthew 26:26)

[Salvation]

You don’t believe that Christ’s body was broken, bruised and bleeding, spilling blood (let alone his side being lanced by a centurion.) along the way to Calvary and on Calvary?

Did you see The Passion of the Christ?

St. Anne Catherine Emmerich in a vision, was told that Christ had over 5,000 wounds. I forget the actual number right now.

How can one read the Bible and not believe that Christ was broken and his own blood was spilled?

[Titanites]

I don't mean any disrespect when I say this...but you folks have too much "stuff" to do in order to be accepted.

It isn't "too much" when we are doing what He told us to do in Luke 22:19. He literally said "do this". It is interesting to hear what other Christians think is too much to do.

[armydoc]

51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."

Does the Catholic Church teach that anyone who takes the Eucharist will have eternal life?

53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;

Does the Catholic Church teach that not taking the Eucharist precludes one from eternal life?

[WileyPink]

No, he said, "Luke 22:19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

What if I miss "doing"? Am I still saved? I have already "Done" all that is necessary to be accepted...I believed on Him as my Lord and Savior. Baptism and The Lord's Supper are symbols of the death, burial, and resurrection; and of the breaking of His body and the spilling of His blood. Both symbolic. We are saved by grace through faith...ALONE! Not with all the other "Stuff"!

In Christ,

[Titanites]

We are saved by grace through faith...ALONE!

You won't find the phrase "faith alone" in the NT. In fact, you contradict Scripture.

James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

[NYer]

No to both questions.