The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ is truly and entirely present in the Eucharist. His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity are there in what appears to be ordinary bread and wine.
When the bread and wine are consecrated by a Catholic priest at Mass, the substance or essence of the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus through a process called transubstantiation.
While the substance changes the accidents do not, so the color, taste, texture, and other characteristics of the bread and wine remain the same.
The Church’s doctrine of the Real Presence is a mystery. It is not fully understood, but believed because it comes from Jesus’ own authoritative words found in Sacred Scripture.
Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life and said that to have eternal life his flesh and blood would need to be consumed as food. He used firm language, even indicating that his flesh should be gnawed like an animal.
Later, Jesus took bread and wine in his hands, blessed them, and said that they were now his body and blood, the same flesh and blood that would be given up for the salvation of the world.
The disciples of Jesus knew that He was speaking literally and since the early Church, the Eucharist has been an intimate encounter with Jesus Christ and the highest form of worship.
Jesus made an absolute statement:
A shocking teaching about Jesus’ flesh and blood:
Nourished with his Body and Blood:
“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from Heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” 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.”
John 6: 48-55
It is not just a symbol:
New manna and real blood for the New Covenant:
God makes Himself intimately available:
The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1374
The power of Jesus’ words change reality:
An incomprehensible mystery:
Faith demands that we approach the Eucharist fully aware that we are approaching Christ himself. It is precisely his presence which gives the other aspects of the Eucharist — as meal, as memorial of the Paschal Mystery, as eschatological anticipation — a significance which goes far beyond mere symbol- ism. The Eucharist is a mystery of presence, the perfect fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to remain with us until the end of the world.
Pope John Paul II, Mane Nobiscum Domine, 7 October 2004
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob placed on the tongue:
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