We face the same choice of those who heard Jesus talk about His flesh being the Bread of Life
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
There’s no way around it: We’re reading the “Bread of Life” discourse from John 6 this week, and Jesus insistently draws our attention to His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.
What Jesus says in John 6 matches the accounts of the Last Supper in Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22. Jesus says of the bread, “this is my Body,” and He says of the wine, “this is my Blood.” St. Paul recounts this same thing in 1 Corinthians 11. This is the teaching handed on to him by the earliest believers.
Jesus had the opportunity to qualify what He said about His flesh being the Bread of Life. He could have said: “I was just speaking metaphorically.” He didn’t. Instead, He doubled down on the literal meaning, shifting from a general term for “eating” (which might have been interpreted symbolically) to a graphic term — more like “chewing” or “gnawing” — which left no doubt about his point.
That, fundamentally, is why we talk about the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist: because He said it and clearly meant it. And it was shocking to those who first heard it. The common response is captured well in John 6:66: “After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer walked with Him.” We face the same choice.
The Church developed her teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist even more precisely in the doctrine of transubstantiation (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 1373-1376). In simple terms, this means that the outward appearance (in technical language, the “species”) remains what it was — bread and wine — while the inward reality (in technical language, the “substance”) really becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. These terms translate, into precise philosophical language, what Jesus said: this is my Body, this is my Blood, and unless you eat my Body and drink my Blood, you have no life in you.
Though not exactly the same, this teaching is related to the pledge of transformation that Jesus makes to us. Our outward reality can remain the same, even while the inner reality of our lives is radically transformed by faith in Jesus. We see this every time a person is baptized: They look the same before and after, but — in their deepest reality — they have become something different. St. Paul echoes this when he says: “I live now, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Again, though not exactly the same, this teaching is related to how as Christians we’re called to interact with the world. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we have to leave our secular occupation. In that sense, the “outward reality” can remain the same. But the deepest reality is that, whatever work we do, we’re working to transform the world, drawing it more and more closely to the kingdom of God.
The Church’s teaching on transubstantiation, then, is not some abstract doctrine with little practical import. It’s grounded in Jesus’ own words. It has deep implications for our identity. And it can transform our work in the world.
