A little bit on the Eucharist
I was looking through some old emails I wrote several years ago to a friend who was leaving the Catholic Church. Here’s the short section I wrote about the Eucharist…
The Eucharist
From the conversation we had, I’m not particularly sure whether or not you still believe in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, so in case you do, I’ll be brief. Denial of Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist is a very common teaching among many Protestant denominations (but as always, not universally).
Scripture
The Eucharist was a central part of life for the Apostles (Acts 2:42) yet in most Protestant churches Holy Communion is pretty rare. If the Eucharist is only symbolic, why is unworthy reception of the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:27-30) spoken of in such strong, sacrilegious, life-and-death terms? Scripture records Jesus saying in John 6:35-70 that we must eat His body and drink His blood. If he was only speaking symbolically why did he lose so many followers that day?
Church History
Outside of Scripture, something that you will find without exception among the Early Church Fathers is the belief that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is one of the central topics examined in the Didache (70-90 AD), probably the earliest Christian writing not to be included in the canon of the Bible. This First Century document calls the Eucharist a “sacrifice”.
As you may have now read, St. Ignatius of Antioch (96 AD) described the Eucharist as “the medicine of immortality” and described the Gnostics as those who “abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.” – Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6
The historical witness for this doctrine is undeniable. Absolutely undeniable.
Whilst I was still in my rather anti-Catholic phase I heard someone say “If you say you’re not being fed in the Catholic Church then you clearly don’t know who you’re eating”. As much as this sounded arrogant and as much as it irritated me, it did prompt me to really examine the teaching of the Eucharist because, if it was true, to miss out would be a tragedy.
