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."
-John 6:53-58
I've been thinking a lot lately about how a lot of Protestants deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and wishing I could think of a really good apology to convince them of it. Then through my reading I came upon it. If you believe that Christ offered himself up as the true paschal lamb for our salvation, which all Christians believe, then I am convinced you must believe that Christ is fully present in the Eucharist.
Here's why: (Besides Christ actually saying that the bread and wine are his body and blood! Also, Jesus Christ does not lie. He IS truth. Ergo, if he says it is his body and blood then you had better believe it!)
During the time of the first Passover in Egypt, the Israelites had to sacrifice a paschal lamb and then eat it in order to be saved from God's wrath on Egypt's firstborn sons. Likewise, during the Passover around the year 33 AD, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, offered himself up as the true paschal lamb to be sacrificed on the cross for the salvation of the whole world. Christ instituted the Eucharist as a memorial of his Passover sacrifice (which we Catholics partake in every Sunday, as do some Protestants) in which we eat and drink the bread and wine that are truly Christ's body and blood.
When reading the Bible it is of the utmost importance, as I have learned from Scott Hahn, that we look at the New Testament in light of the Old as well as the Old in light of the New!
Furthermore, St. Paul admonishes:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
-1 Cor 11:27-29
For such a holy act as eating the body and blood of Christ, St. Paul warns that it shouldn't be done lightly. For doing so could bring judgment upon yourself. If the bread and wine were not really the body and blood of Christ, but rather simply a symbolic act, then St. Paul would not speak about it with the seriousness that he does.
