Eucharist.
What does this word mean and why is it not in the bible? This word means “thanksgiving” and thanksgiving is in the bible. The root of this word comes from the Greek language. As Catholics, we believe that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. It is in NO way symbolic. How can we defend this belief with scripture?
Jesus said in John 6:51= I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give you is my flesh for the life of the world. Jesus says his flesh is the life of the world that we must eat.
John 6:52-53= The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (53) 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 have no life within you.” Jesus is being questioned and he is making it clear that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood or we have no life within us. Now let’s go a little deeper into it.
John 6:55= “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” Making it a little clearer for them to understand.
John 6:60= then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard: who can accept it?” The disciples were not taking Jesus in a symbolic way when he said this. If they were taking him symbolically it would not be a hard saying to accept. Now, some people might say, “Well Jesus also said he was the vine and the door as well, but we don’t see hinges and leaves on him.” Yes Jesus did say that, but if we look at these verses not a single person took him literal, no one said, “This is a hard saying to accept,” because they all knew he was speaking symbolically. Now let’s look how the disciples reacted to this statement.
John 6:66-67= As a result to 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. Now we can see here they took Jesus literal with his statement and no longer followed him. Don’t you think if Jesus was speaking symbolically he would have stopped them from leaving? He did not only let them leave, he also turned to his twelve and asked them if they were also going to leave. This shows that Jesus was serious about this and was willing to lose his followers. He was speaking literal, and was token literal.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29= Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and the blood of the Lord. (28) A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. (29) For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on him self. If it was not literally his body and blood why would St. Paul speak of it as it was?
Also look up 1 Cor 10:16, All of John 6, Matthew 26:26-28, Luke 22:19, 1 Cor 6:20, John 20:24-29
(CCC) 1322-1419
-AVM
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