"If it's a symbol, to hell with it." — The Truth about the Eucharist

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]My friends, every episode in this series leads to here. Either the Eucharist is the most important thing in the universe or the Catholic Church has been wrong about this whole claim for the last 2,000 years. There's no middle position.

[00:00:12]It's one or the other. It's black or white. So, this episode we're going to really walk through John 6 very carefully. We're going to review the Last Supper. We're going to review the thoughts of the early church fathers.

[00:00:22]And we're also going to review the Greek to understand exactly why the church has held her claim and not switched positions for all this time. But first, let's just put this into perspective. If the Catholic Church is truly wrong about the Eucharist, then this has to be the most grotesque form of idolatry that she has held and claimed for the longest time. We are telling people to bow down to bread every Sunday and every day of the year. But if she's right about the Eucharist, and that means every Protestant pastor who's claimed otherwise, every secular skeptic, and every lukewarm Catholic who's even come to Sunday Mass, but after receiving Holy Communion just walks out in the middle of the final blessing, all that has got to go because we have to make a choice.

[00:01:04]This is not some option that's missing.

[00:01:06]This is one specific argument that matters for every viewer. I want to begin with 1 Corinthians 11 28 and 29 because that sets the precedence of why this is important. These are the words of St. Paul. Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. So that is it. We need to discern the body. And if we are not intentional to realize that this is truly Jesus Christ body, blood, soul and divinity, then we are eating and drinking judgment. We are falling into sin by failing to accept that this is who Jesus says it is himself. Okay, I want to focus on these claims that theologians and also really important Catholic influencers have shared in the past. So I want to use Bishop Robert Baron and his example of Flenry Oconor as an example to set the grounds as well. And Flenry Oconor for those of you who aren't familiar, she's a very famous Catholic author and poet growing up in New York. She was very intentional about the Catholic rights and dignity for all people, really giving her intention to the poor. But in any case, she addresses at a dinner party a very famous Protestant intellectual. And he flat out addresses the Eucharist and he says, "Well, that's a nice symbol." Flannry Okconor responds to him, "If it's just a symbol to hell with it. If this is truly just a symbol, then what's the point?

[00:02:30]Why will we worship bread? That is nuts." If that claim were true, then anyone who is worshiping bread is clearly out of their mind. But we see that it is not that because Jesus has claimed otherwise. And that brings us to John 6 48- 58. But I want to hone in on John 6:51 and then 53 to 55. And I quote, "I am the bread of life. The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drinked. All right, so before I get into this next part, for those of you who haven't read this book, you got to check it out. Brand Petri on the Eucharist. It's titled Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist. And this is exactly how you'll understand the connection between the last supper, Jesus's passion, his death on the cross, and how the holy mass brings present represents that same sacrifice every time we celebrate the holy mass. So Dr. Brandt Petri goes in detail about the Greek words that are used when Jesus talks about eating his flesh. In John 6 when he says he who eats my flesh, he uses the Greek word fago p h a g- o which means to eat. But after he says this and we hear that the crowd gets agitated. They start walking away. There is something that gets very poorly lost in the English translation because in the English translation that just uses the word eat. We really skip out on the change of the way we eat because afterwards the following words in which Jesus uses eat, he uses another Greek term called trogo. T r o g o. And the reason why this is important is because that specific Greek word talks about eating the flesh really like beasts.

[00:04:28]Like we are going at it. We are gnawing down on that porter steak. You know, this is some serious feast. So when you think about what would typically happen when someone gets agitated and they counter our command or whatever our statement, if you don't feel confidently about this, you'd back off. But we notice that Jesus is saying, "Oh, you don't believe when I say that you have to eat my flesh?" Well, I'm telling you, no, you don't just eat it. You're going to gnaw on that. This is how serious I am. If you don't believe me, and then he looks to his disciples and he says, "Are you going to believe me?" And as people are leaving, as other apostles are leaving, he looks at the 12 and he says, "Well, you guys could leave if you want too." We hear in John 6:66 how so many people, so many disciples left because they had a hard time believing the same.

[00:05:15]But after that, we also hear Jesus turning to Peter and he says, "Are you also to leave?" And Peter turns back to him and he says, "Lord, to whom shall we turn? You have the words of eternal life." And so Peter in his fidelity, not fully understanding, he backs our Lord and that is our pope. Let's go. And that brings me to this next passage. I want to focus on the Gospel of Luke 22 14 to 20. But I want to hone in on verses 19 and 20. And so I quote, "And he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body which is given for you.

[00:05:51]Do this in remembrance of me." And likewise the cup after supper saying this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Okay. So this is very key. Dr. Scott Han also is very articulate in the details especially of the last supper because we know that the last supper in the Jewish tradition is a cedar supper is a Passover meal. And in the Passover meal this isn't just a hangout of different people, friends coming together, family coming together and just doing a Thanksgiving party you know. No, this is specifically a ritual where you have to have specific food items. And so in this meal, you're going to have the bread, you're going to have the wine, you're going to have the bitter herbs, and what else? You're going to have the lamb. But in the last supper, we notice that those other items are presented. But Jesus doesn't put out the lamb because he's pointing to himself anus.

[00:06:46]Behold the lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world. That's why we say those words at the mass at the very moment of the elevation of the body of Christ. So this is very good because this is how we can understand in the depths of the mass that every time the holy mass is celebrated on the altar, we are representing the same sacrifice on Mount Calvary in an unbloody manner. Why? Because this is the presentation. We're representing that same sacrifice, but it's being done in a substantial way. Notice that we're not doing it with the material way. This isn't a transmaterialism.

[00:07:25]The church in the council of Trent made a very declarative statement saying this is transsubstantiation is a change of the substance. So the substance of the body of Christ is being presented but the material of the bread and the wine remain. This is why again when Jesus points to himself and says this is my flesh. Again in 1 Corinthians 11 St. Paul is saying when you see that bread, you see that wine, we have to discern the body. And so it's a beautiful reality. And every time we receive that holy sacrifice and we look at the cross and we see the corpus, we realize the continuity, the the exchange that began from the last supper that was presented at the sacrifice on Mount Calvary and is being receelebrated, represented here. That same one, this is not another one. This is the same one.

[00:08:16]So there is a problem because sometimes you have the Protestant argument. People will say, "Well, this was a medieval invention." But I think it's very important if you're arguing solos scriptura, you can get very caught up in limiting things to medieval inventions.

[00:08:31]So it's really important for us to understand what the early church fathers believed. So I want to present to you four of them. So we have St. Ignatius of Antioch around the year 107. And while he is on his way to his martyrdom to be fed by lions, he writes about the heretics who reject the Eucharist, he says they abstain from the Eucharist because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ. And so he's calling them out. This is living witness, living memory of the apostles for those who are denying the true presence in the Eucharist. That brings us then to St. Justin Martyr who was around the year 150. Remember he was a brilliant philosopher, brilliant scholar and through his conversion he had a big part in shaping the pagan minds to convert to Catholicism. But in his apologia which is his first apology he writes to the pagan emperor and he says not as common bread or common drink do we receive these the food which is blessed by the prayer of his word of God's word Jesus's word is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. This is the year 155 before council of Nika, the council of calcedan. This is very early on. Following him is St. Sarah Jerusalem, the year 350. And he really like doubles down on this. He's addressing the newly baptized and I quote, "Do not therefore regard the bread and wine as simply that. For they are according to the master's declaration the body and blood of Christ, even though the senses suggest to you the other. Let faith make you firm." And finally, I want to bring in St. Augustine because I know there are a lot of other denominations who have a real appreciation for him. But remember, if we are going to believe in what a person says, we got to hold them to their word for their entire beliefs. We don't just pick and choose. So this is what St. Augustine says, and this is the year 411. That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God is the body of Christ. And that chalice or rather what is in that chalice having been sanctified by the word of God is the blood of Christ. Not symbolic my friends. So let's do the math. Since John 6 was written you have 16 centuries of people early church fathers saints doctors councils that are claiming that this is the true body and true blood of Jesus. And then in the 1500s you have these reformers especially Zwingi who say otherwise.

[00:10:59]These guys decided that it was a metaphor. So you have to ask yourself which one is more likely the entire Christian world leading up to the Protestant Reformation or is it what the Protestants taught that all of a sudden those previous centuries don't really matter and go by the wayside. So real quick on the saints I want to focus on a really heroic saint and he's um a saint of the 1900s. the 20th century. His name is St. Jean Marie Vion and he is a very humble humble humble humble French priest, French cur from this tiny town called ours. He's a patron of priests, especially diosin priests. But when he was first assigned there, he arrived and there was a little boy outside of the town. He asks the boy, "Where is the church of ours?" And so the boy points over the hill to the steeple and St. John Marie Vion says, "You showed me the way to the church. I will show you the way to heaven." And after that, you really held to his word. St. Vion was all about the ordinary means of holiness, spending long hours offering whatever sacraments and spending tons of hours in front of the Eucharist. He would constantly be praying with Jesus for the conversion of all the sinners in his town. And he pray for them to shut down that which is not of God. and he would spend 16 to 18 hours a day in the confessional trying to heal sinners of their sin to really give them an opportunity to begin again. And then on top of that, people from all over Europe once hearing about this this humble priest, they would flock to him. And he was able to read their souls not because of some voodoo or some other mystical magic, but really because he had the heart of Christ. because he was convinced from all those hours and years of forming friendship with Jesus.

[00:12:46]There's no secret to this. That's really Jesus body, blood, soul, and divinity.

[00:12:52]So again, there's this other objection in which many people sometimes argue that Jesus's words are metaphoric because not only with the true presence of the Eucharist, but Jesus will also say, "I am the gate." He points to himself as the true gate. And he says, "Don't go following the thieves and the wolves, but no, you follow me and I will protect you because I am the gate." He also talks about himself being the true vine, right? He says, "You guys are the branches, but you have to stay close to me. I'm going to prune you, but you have to stay close to me." So, those are metaphoric. So, it's like, why do you pick and choose which ones are metaphor and which ones aren't? And that's a very fair assessment. But let's look more carefully at when Jesus says that he is the living bread. Because when Jesus points to himself as the bread from heaven, notice that the disciples start arguing with him, saying, "This is a hard saying. This is hard to believe."

[00:13:39]If this was pure metaphor, again, Jesus would have backed down and he would have said, "Duh, it's a metaphor. Come on, guys." But he doesn't go there. No, he holds his line. Again, he goes from FGO to Trogo. He says, "Guys, I'm not joking. This is a hard saying. I I understand, but you need to believe me.

[00:13:56]You need to eat my flesh. The other metaphors, the gates, the the vine, he doesn't have to back down or double down or anything because there's no confusion. They are able to accept it for what it is metaphorically. So then that brings us to that other point of the fo and the trogo. These Greek terms, these are not metaphoric. This literally means to eat. And how do we eat? How do we gnaw? How do we chew? That also is a very physical word that helps us to realize and to avail ourselves to the Eucharist. The last point brings us to the early church and to all those believers who held on to these words from Jesus to the apostles and to the early church fathers and they were willing to give their life breath for this faith for this truth. And even even if you think about the authors or the council fathers who put together the canon of the Bible and so if someone were to argue that we are sold the scriptura then what about the intention of those who put the scriptura together.

[00:14:53]So the original canon and the books of the bible those who put those books together what did they believe? This is before the 1500s they believed in the true presence. But do we get to read what they put together thinking otherwise according to our own interpretation? I I know it's hard, but if this is true, then we have to submit to this teaching and really open our hearts to try to understand. And if you really try to understand, it's incredibly beautiful because we see exactly how the mystery unveils itself.

[00:15:24]For those of you who get caught up, there is another book I want to recommend. His name is Lawrence Fingold and he has this real suma on the Eucharist. I mean, just look at that density. He's a brilliant theologian and he goes into the details covering everything and he goes through the theology so that we can really dissect why intellectually Jesus makes this claim. But my friends, if this is what the church has believed all these years and there is real depth to the theology and why, then we have to make a choice and there's really only one choice. And if we really believe in the true presence, then how we act upon that belief should be consistent. And I must say, at least here in the church of America, there are many different expressions and there are different ways in which people show their faith. And one of the things that some parishioners do that I would like to fraternally correct is when people leave the mass early, especially right after receiving holy communion. The liturgy is a start and a finish. We don't just choose to eat the main course and not stay around for the conclusion. That's very rude.

[00:16:30]And so I really ask for everyone to take careful examination of how we enter into the mass. And do we enter into the mass with proper reverence for what is taking shape in our hearts when we receive the Eucharist? Do we really appreciate how blessed we are to receive Jesus? I mean, there are countries throughout the world in which there are so many faithful who are yearning to be able to go to mass but have no access. Take North Korea for example. for decades. There are devout faithful, I believe, that are still hidden there that have their bees that are praying to Mother Mary for help, but have no way of going to mass and they would die to be able to receive Jesus.

[00:17:10]And there we have there are Christmas and Easter only Catholics that just go for cultural reasons. So, let's really pray for the conversion, the conversion of hearts, beginning with ours, allowing for the Lord to reveal to us just how much we need to be grateful. And here's a personal story I want to share with you. You know, when you spend time in seminary, you do a lot of eating, a lot of sleeping, a lot of studying, and you do a lot of praying, right? And so, I'm gathering with my brother seminarians, and we're required, everyone's required in a seminary to come for adoration in the late afternoon, right before dinner.

[00:17:42]But in the early morning, there was a handful of us that would always gather in what's called the St. Katherine Chapel. And we would spend a time of mental prayer with Jesus. And this was one of those most serene and in a sense like intimate parts of the day because it was just us and Jesus in silence and allowing our Lord to speak. And this is where we really learn the heart of our savior because as we unpack the scriptures, as we read it carefully, allowing for the Lord to speak allows for him to show to us certain parts of the scripture in a new lens that we didn't see quite before to actually go deeper. Duke and Altum, right? Cast into the deep. Like he allows for us to go deeper in the scriptures and unpack so many things that are so united to our life and are so relevant. And that's what I mean when I say we need to do mental prayer. We need to spend time in conversation with our Lord unpacking the scripture. And so even for our Protestant brothers and sisters, I'm telling you like if you give the Lord a chance, if you spend time before the Eucharist, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. I leave you with that.

[00:18:50]And I invite you again to go check out your local Catholic church. Really spend some time in front of the tabernacle and allow for him to look at you. And I promise you, like you can get very distracted, too. You're showing up.

[00:19:01]You're consistent and that's what matters. But there's some days when you can get extremely bothered and completely tempted with side thoughts.

[00:19:09]That's exactly what the enemy is going to do. He's going to try to pull you away from Jesus. He's going to use these distractions because they're so subtle.

[00:19:16]They're so subtle that it almost feels natural. And even CS Lewis in the scrupate letters is very intentional to share that. And this is one of the most keen ways that the enemy tries to get to us to separate that relationship between us and God. But I'm letting you know if you commit, you understand that there's nothing in life more important than that intimate union with the heart of Christ in the Eucharist. My friends, stay united in prayer. I'll see you in the Eucharist.