Jesus commanded his disciples to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood so that they could have Eternal Life.
His words shocked and repulsed his followers so much that many walked away. But Jesus still would not change what He said and even challenged the Apostles by asking if they wanted to leave too.
It was later, at the Last supper, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist and revealed that consecrated Bread and Wine would become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity even while their appearance remained the same. This is how the Flesh and Blood of the Lord would be eaten.
Unlike cannibalism, where a human is killed so that the meat of their dead body can be eaten by another human, Jesus voluntarily gave up his life on the Cross and offers his entire glorified Body in an unbloody manner in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine.
Jesus’ body is not killed, destroyed, or affected in any way. After they are received in Holy Communion, the elements of the Eucharist fall apart and no longer appear as bread and wine so they are no longer his Body and Blood.
It seems crazy:
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” 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 do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in Me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will have life because of Me. This is the bread that came down from Heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
John 6: 52-58
Eating the bloody flesh of animals was prohibited:
His followers understood that Jesus was speaking literally:
The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. “Will you also go away?”: The Lord’s question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has “the words of eternal life” and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1336
Catholics do not eat Jesus’ dead flesh:
Jesus consumes whoever receives Him in the Eucharist:
Not cannibalism and not merely a symbol either:
Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into His body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into His blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving unchanged only the properties of the bread and wine which our senses perceive. This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine, as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body.
Pope Paul VI, Solemni hac Liturgia, June 30, 1968
Jesus is present in a sacramental way:
What looks like bread is God Himself:
A unbloody means of partaking in the flesh of Jesus:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
The times where we open our souls:
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