Another Protestant objection revolves around the claim that Christ’s phrase
“to eat his flesh and drink his blood” was a figurative way of saying to
believe and have faith in Him. There is some truth in the assertion that such
a phrase had a figurative meaning. However, in the cultures of the Middle
East it meant to calumniate, revile, attack or insult someone unjustly. It is,
therefore, nonsense to argue that Christ would have used this phrase in the
popular figurative sense, for that would have been tantamount to Christ
asking His followers to sin against Him in order to inherit eternal life! It
should also be noted that the Greek word used for “eat” in St. John literally
means “to gnaw.” This is not the language of figuration.
A final Protestant appeal is also made to St. John 6:63: “It is the spirit that
gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life.” We are told that these words mean that the eating of flesh is
of no spiritual value, and only faith can profit one unto eternal life. So,
Christ could not have meant to eat His flesh in order to have life. The
Catholic response is that Christ was, in reality, making an appeal to His
listeners to trust Him on faith rather than try to rationalize His words in
order to find their true meaning. In the previous verse (v. 62) Christ infers
that His listeners would have had no difficulty accepting His words if they
had seen Him in His original glory, that is, as the Son of God equal to the
Father, for then His words would obviously be the words of God rather
than the words of man––words of “spirit and life.”
To conclude, it is also necessary to examine the words of St. Paul in 1
Corinthians, chapters 10 and 11. In these chapters he sternly chastises the
Corinthians for their idolatry and their poor attitude towards reception of
the Eucharist. His language is remarkably literal and blunt:
“I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank
the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock
which followed them, and the Rock was Christ (10:1-4) … Therefore, my
beloved, shun the worship of idols … The cup of blessing which we bless, is
it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is
it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we
who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (10:14-17)
… You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot
partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons (10:21-22)…”
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