NOT only the witness of the ages but Scripture itself demonstrates the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist. Protestant controversialists, of course, have attempted to interpret the New Testament to discredit that teaching but they labor under two extraordinary difficulties. First of all, the Catholic Church at the Council of Carthage in 398 proclaimed as revealed the same 27 books Protestants recognize as the New Testament. If the New Testament clearly demonstrates the falsity of Catholic Eucharistic practice, how could the Church have ever embraced these books as her own?

Secondly, if the New Testament repudiates the Real Presence as taught by the Catholic Church, why is it that none of the brilliant minds before Luther, Zwingli and Calvin ever saw it? Why was it that such a crystal clear repudiation in the estimation of the Reformers evaded such men of learning and genius as Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas?

At any rate, the first scriptural passage cited by Catholic apologists to defend the Real Presence comes from St John’s gospel 6:48-59: “I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread of life which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying: how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I said to you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth my flesh shall live forever.”

The following analysis comes from Father J. M. Hervé. The words themselves, he observes, are so clear and obvious that they exclude any metaphor. Christ asserts that the bread which He will give is His own proper flesh. The expression “my flesh” cannot be understood except in a literal sense. Moreover, His flesh because it is to be given in the future cannot be a metaphor for faith in Christ. Faith in not a future gift but one for all times. Besides, His flesh is to be given “for the life of the world” because His flesh is to be offered for our redemption. Furthermore, Christ commands His flesh to be eaten under pain of spiritual death and under the promise of eternal life. No one issues any kind of precept, let alone one of such consequences, in ambiguous words and obscure metaphors.

The impossibility of a metaphorical sense is reinforced by three other considerations.

1. No biblical author ever used the expression “to eat the flesh and drink the blood of someone” as a metaphor for believing in him.
   
2. Among the Jews, the expression “to eat the flesh of someone” had one manifest meaning, namely two calumniate him (cf. Ps. 13:4; Ps. 26:2; Job 19:22; Micheas 3:3; and Gal. 5:15).
   
3. The expression “to drink someone’s blood” is not used in a metaphoric sense except to signify punishment of severe vengeance (cf. Is. 49:26; Apoc. 16:6).

The literal meaning of our Lord’s words can be recognized from His reason for acting and the understanding of His audience. Our Lord certainly did not wish to deceive His hearers. But the Jews, the disciples and the Apostles understood the words of Christ in a literal sense and Christ corroborated their interpretation by a more intense affirmation. The Jews completely believed that the flesh of Christ was to be eaten and they questioned how this could be done. Christ, who could have explained in a single word that He was using a metaphor, does not correct their understanding but rather proposes it more explicitly, repeats it six times and confirms it with an oath.

When they heard our Lord’s repeated declaration to the Jews, many of His disciples—obviously accepting His words literally—exclaimed: “This saying is hard and who can hear it?” (John 6:61). Christ did not retract anything of His doctrine but allowed the disciples, scandalized by the promise of eating His flesh, to go away. If He had used a metaphor, He could have prevented their leaving Him by explaining it.

After the disciples left, Christ asked the Apostles, “Will you also go away?” (John 6:68), indicating that He wished them to leave Him rather that interpret His words figuratively.

The second argument of Catholic theologians to support the doctrine of the Real Presence comes from an analysis of the institution of the Eucharist found in the following four New Testament passages:

1. Matthew 26:26-28: “This is my body…For this is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.”
   
2. Mark 14:22-24: “This is my Body…This is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many.”
   
3. Luke 22:19-20: “This is my body…This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.”
   
4. I Corinthians 11:24-25: “This is my body…This chalice is the testament in my blood.”

Father Hervé writes, “Spoken words are to be understood in their natural or literal sense, unless it is evident that the speaker is speaking metaphorically. The meaning of the speech, therefore, is clear either from the nature of the thing spoken about, from the use of human speech or from some previous warning by the speaker. The speech would be deceitful or meaningless otherwise. That would be the case if, for example, someone took a stone and said, ‘This is Caesar,’ saying to himself, ‘I choose this thing as a figure of Caesar.’ Bread and wine, neither of themselves nor from the use of human speech nor from a previous warning of Christ can be viewed as signs of his body and blood. Therefore, the words of Christ cannot otherwise be understood except in a literal and obvious sense.”

As Father Hervé further points out, “the word ‘is’ manifests or makes an identity between the subject and the predicate. Therefore, if a spoken proposition is true, the subject (i.e., ‘this’) ought to show the presence of the very thing which is expressed by the predicate. In this case, the predicate does not express a sign of the body and blood, but the very real and substantial body and blood of Christ. In the Eucharist, therefore, the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially contained.”

“At the Last Supper,” Hervé continues, “Christ gave that which He promised and what He promised was to give His own body to be eaten. At the Last Supper, moreover, He gave that body which was given up for us. What was given up was not a sign of His body and blood but the reality.”

A third argument for the Real Presence is drawn from two passages in St. Paul concerning the use of the Eucharist.

In I Corinthians 10:14-21 the Apostle writes: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, fly from the service of idols. I speak as to wise men: judge ye yourselves what I say. The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not partaking of the body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread. Behold Israel according to the flesh: are not they, that eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar? What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing? But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils.”

As Father Hervé points out, “the Eucharistic eating and drinking is the very union with the body and blood of Christ, by which union the faithful become one body, namely the living and mystical body. But this is impossible unless the body and blood of Christ are truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist.”

“To withdraw the Corinthians from eating food sacrificed to idols at the table of demons, Paul proposes to them a much more excellent table which they can enjoy, namely the table of the Lord. His argument is this: The pagans, by eating what is offered to idols, become partakers of the table of demons and communicate with devils. The faithful, by drinking the chalice and breaking the Eucharistic bread, are made partakers of the Lord’s table and participate in the very body and blood of Christ. The pagans really eat what is offered to idols. Therefore, by analogy, the faithful really eat the body of the Lord and really drink His blood. Unless the body and blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist, however, the faithful do not really eat the body and drink the blood of the Lord.”

The second passage from Paul which concerns the use of the Eucharist comes from I Corinthians 11:27-29.

“Therefore whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”

Hervé’s comment: “A man who eats the Eucharist unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. This is true only if the body and blood of the Lord are in the Eucharist. If the Eucharist were only a symbol or a figure of Christ’s body and blood, one who received it unworthily would sin against the person of Christ but not against Christ’s own body and blood.

“If an Israelite had eaten manna unworthily, he could not be called guilty of the body of Christ, although he had eaten a figure of Christ’s body.

“Because the Eucharistic bread must truly be recognized as the body of Christ, one eats and drinks judgement to himself by not distinguishing the Eucharist from ordinary bread (cf. Acts 2:42-47; 20:7ff; Heb. 13:7-15).”