'Catholics Come Home' part 1: The Eucharist

Some of you may have noticed the commercials on TV, pictures of family as a voice reads off values many Americans value and then the credentials for the Roman Catholic Church, some of which are plainly wrong. I went to their website, 'catholicscomehome.org' to see what it was all about to discover that the Catholics are now taking televangelism a step further by trying to 'evangelize' via the internet. Under the title 'teachings of the church' I clicked on 'the Eucharist' to see what the 'holy' Roman Catholic Church teaches on the Euchatist. Underneath that heading there were commonly asked questions to which some unknown catholic, assumably with the full authority of the 'holy' Roman Catholic Church had answered. One of these questions was "Why do protestants not believe John 6 when it says that Jesus' flesh was real food and that His blood was real drink?" I want to take a moment to examine the answer and justification given by 'Catholics Come Home"



The answer I believe speaks volumes more than the justification given, being simply: "I don't know." Amazing that they can tell us we are wrong but not why. Having stated thus I will show why the justification given by the Catholics and their current understanding on the Eucharist are incorrect. In their opening statement they refer to the places in the gospel where the Eucharist is first obserbeved / instated, Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22. In these Christ very clearly does state that "This is my body" and "This is my blood". Obviously he did not just cut off a part of his body to feed them, nor did he cut himself and bleed into the cup that they might drink his blood so Christ is clearly not making an indicitive statement as to what it is, unless of course, he is NOT speaking literally as the Catholics claim him to be. Here is the root of their error, that they cannot discern what is literal and what is not literal. A statement does not need to say that it is not literal for us to know that it is not literal. Indeed, lets look at Matthew 26 a little closer. After the cup is passed around and all drink of 'blood' according to Catholics, he says "I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine..." clearly refering to the contents of the cup. Thus the church, seeing it's error states that it is equal to scripture (even though it's not) and proceeds to introduce contradictory doctrines to explain away the inconsistency, such as that the bread isn't actually flesh (even though they must if Christ's statements are to be taken literally) and that it's 'substance' changes though it's physical existence does not. Scripture does not say anything of the sort, thus the church should not either.



But on to their second argument, that in John 6 Jesus repeats himself stating that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink. To this I must say that the person writing this is clearly doing so in a buble with utter disregard for all other doctrines and ultimately relying on the Church's self proclamation to always be right, rather than searching for truth itself. Why do I say such a thing? Let's think about this statement for a second...this means they (unless they are to blatantly admit to hypocracy and being wrong) believe that Jesus Christ was actually bread. That is the literall meaning of "I am the bread" is it not? This is exactly what they argue here, that he was literal. Just think, that Chirst was not only fully man, and fully God, but fully bread and fully wine as well! That he lived for decades and never molded! I should formally put forth to the Roman Catholic Church that this be formally added to the list of miracles performed by God. But what would they say, they'd of course say that Jesus wasn't bread. (And would thus be hypocrites) No one in their right mind would take this literally, but instead understand it to be more like a metaphor where Christ tells us truly that he will make ammends for sins, that his body will be the sacrifice and that he is utterly right in his comparison to the bread sent from heaven in the time of Moses, which was his original point. In the same thread we can understand Christ to be present in the Eucharist, not by it physically being flesh, but metaphorically, by doing it in remembrance of him. (Luke 22:17)



Now on to some of their 'facts' to prove their point. Their first fact was that in John 6, the Jews took Christ's claim to be bread and wine literally. This is true, absolutely and undeniably. What the Catholics fail to realize is that these Jews were not saved, many were not his disciples and absolutely none of them understood what Jesus meant by telling them that he was bread from heaven (very similar to the 'holy' Roman Catholic Church). Their second fact was that the disciples took him seriously. This one is more tenous, what they said was "This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?" Even granting the Catholics the benefit of the doubt that the disciples doubts were actually belief (although doubt and belief are in fact quite opposite) many of the disciples abandoned Jesus (vs 66). Thier final 'fact' is not even a fact. They claim that the apostles took him seriously siting verses 67-69 which actually say "'You do not want to leave too, do you?' Juses asked the twelve. Simon Peter aswered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'" Please not that they are affirming belief in the fact that he is the saviour, the Messiah, the Holy One of God, but not that he is made of bread, nor that a piece of bread placed into the mouth of a believer by a priest is Christ's body.



Now for the trickiest lie in the apologetic document of the Catholics. They use verse 51, where Christ says "This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world", and then say (truthfuly) that Christ's sacrifice was on the cross and then attempt to say that if you believe (as I do) that the body is not actually bread, you must believe that it wasn't Jesus' body on the cross but ssymbolic flesh and symbolic blood, and that his entire death was nothing but symbolic. This makes me want to punch someone, and I will show you why. First I do not at all miss the irony of the Catholics daring to call someone else for being inconsitent, and they have it backwards. If you literally believe that Christ was made of bread (as the Catholics must) then it wasn't Christ on the cross, but physical bread! The truth, however is contained in scripture: "The bread is my body". In this statement Christ makes the metaphor compleat! He stops speaking in metaphor and plainly tells them it's meaning, he does not merely restate a falsehood. Christ himself is telling them that the bread is representative of his body in the coming sacrifice, and indeed I would even argue that 'eats' is metaphoric. Clearly eating Christ's body does not save you, belief in his atonement on the cross does. To believe in Christ's sacrifice of his real body (made of muscle, sinew and fat, not bread) is to 'eat of the bread of heaven which is his flesh'. It's all a beautiful metaphor which we remember in communion, not magic performed by a priest to turn bread into flesh. That is why I, and other Protestants, believe that the bread of communion is not actually the body of Jesus nor that the wine of communion is actually the blood of Christ either.