Why Do Catholics Believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus?

Fr. Joshua D. Johnson | Director of Vocations | Office of Vocations & Seminarians | Pastor| Sacred Heart of Jesus, Baton Rouge

Emcee for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress

Is the Eucharist —the wafer of bread (along with the wine) that the priest consecrates during Mass— really the Body and Blood of Christ? If so, why does the Catholic Church hold to this teaching? The short answer: Because Jesus tells us in the Bible that the Eucharist is His Body and Blood.

At the Last Supper, Jesus anticipated His death on the cross and gave to His apostles His very self. He said to them: “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood” (Matthew 26:26-28). In addition to the Last Supper narratives found in the Gospels, St. John gives us an extended meditation on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in Chapter 6 of his Gospel. Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life…. The Bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:48; 51).

St. Paul also has something to say about the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:27. In reference to the reception of the Eucharist he says, “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.” This is a serious warning that would not make any sense if the Eucharist were merely a symbol.

The Church Fathers, the earliest Christians who were formed by the Apostles and their successors, also attested to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In AD 110, St Ignatius of Antioch wrote of the Eucharist on his way to martyrdom: “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 Romans 7:3).[1]

About 40 years later, Justin Martyr wrote, “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 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.” (First Apology, 66.).[2]

I invite you to spend time reading, meditating, and contemplating the words of Jesus in the Gospels, the letters of Paul in the New Testament and the writings of the Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist so that the Holy Spirit can unfold for you the source and summit of our Church, Jesus Christ in the most holy Eucharist! 

Fr. Josh Johnson is Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, a pastor, author, and host of the Ask Fr. Josh podcast.

 

[1] William A. Jurgens (editor and translator), The Faith of the Early Fathers (Volume 1), (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970), p. 25.

 

[2] Ibid., p. 55.