Note: All content below that is in italics is taken from the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John in the New American Bible.
For several centuries, many non-Catholic Christian churches have claimed that Jesus never intended for bread and wine to be changed literally into His Body and Blood. They argue that Jesus must have been speaking in symbols as when He said, “I am the vine, you are the branches” in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of John. Unfortunately, even many Catholics do not believe that when they receive the consecrated host at Mass that it is true communion with Jesus Christ. What did Jesus really mean on the night before He died when He took bread and said, “This is my Body”, and later a cup of wine and said, “This is my Blood”? For our answer, we are going to review a lesson Jesus gave at a synagogue in the town of Capernaum about what His intentions would be at the Last Supper.
Shortly after Jesus fed several thousand people by miraculously multiplying five barley loaves and two fish, He was tracked down by a great number of His fellow Jews. They had good reason to believe that He might be the Messiah, the long awaited savior. Sadly, they also had a false notion of what the Messiah’s role was to be. Rather than seeing the Messiah as the servant of the Lord who would free men from their slavery to sin and teach them the importance of loving one another, many of the Jews believed that He would help them to overthrow their oppressors, the Romans. So far, they were very impressed with Our Lord. He had performed many miracles; His words gave hope to the suffering; and He showed mercy to sinners. But they were still looking for other signs so they could be certain that He was the Messiah.
They tested Jesus to see if He was greater than Moses by saying, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” They were referring back in time to when the Israelites had been wandering in the desert in search of the Promised Land. In the mornings, dew formed all around the Israelites’ camp, which when evaporated, left behind flakes of manna (a type of bread). Although Jesus had already performed so many signs, they pressured Him to match the greatness of the miracle of the manna.
After conversing a bit, Jesus stunned the crowd by saying, “It was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world...I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
They asked, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?”
Jesus responded, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day…not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father...Whoever believes has eternal life. 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."
Their jaws must have dropped. It didn’t sound like Jesus was speaking in symbols. To faithful Jews, this sounded like cannibalism. They asked, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"
Once again, Jesus refused to water down His teaching. He said, “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."
It is important to note that the Gospel of John was written in Greek, and the word used above when Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh” more accurately means to “munch” or to “gnaw”. Jesus used language that left no doubt that He intended to literally offer His Body and Blood to be consumed as food and drink.
The Gospel goes on to tell us that many of Jesus’ followers found this teaching too hard to handle: 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."
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
Consider the impact that Our Lord’s teaching on the Eucharist had on many of His Disciples. They had left behind their old ways of life in order to follow Jesus. It would be like giving up your career or your dreams in order to devote your entire existence to Him. Some of these Disciples’ hopes were crushed because they thought Jesus had gone too far with this teaching. If Jesus was only speaking symbolically about giving His Body and Blood as true food and drink, He would certainly have called back these followers of His. He wouldn’t dare let them wander off in confusion over a misunderstanding. There are other times in the Gospels when Jesus sat His Disciples down to explain the meaning behind His words. In this case, Our Lord let them walk away without chasing after them. It was sad that these men could not accept Jesus’ teaching after they had already witnessed so many of His signs. Our Lord would not compromise the truth in order to make these bewildered men happy.
We can liken this situation to that of a man who is “caught in the act” of spending quality time with his sister from out-of-state. His sister drops into town unexpectedly for a visit and the man leaves work early to hang out with her. Meanwhile, a woman who he recently began dating notices the man through a restaurant window sharing a bottle of wine with his sister, who happens to be wearing an engagement ring. The girlfriend later spots the man entering a hotel with his sister. Later on that day, the man calls his girlfriend, who accuses him of being involved with another woman. When the girlfriend tells the man that she never wants to see him again, what do you think the man will do? Will he allow this woman, who he is very interested in marrying, to walk out of his life over a misunderstanding? Or will common sense prevail as the man explains the situation and then invites his girlfriend over to meet his sister? Likewise, Jesus would not have allowed a number of His followers to desert Him over a mix-up with no explanation.
What about those who were closest to Jesus? 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."
Peter responded the same way that many Catholics who believe in the Eucharist as the true Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus would. We do not fully understand how the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine while retaining their tastes, features and smells. We cannot begin to explain how these objects become for us the Body and Blood of Christ. But like Peter, we must put faith in Our Lord’s words. Jesus said that He would give His Flesh and Blood as the Bread of Life and that we must partake of it if we are to have eternal life. We can only accept Our Lord’s teaching and respond, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
