Communion: Real or Symbolic?

When I was 17 years old and attending the Presbyterian church, I was best friends with a Roman Catholic girl.

One day, my friend invited me to a special class that her church was having in regards to the different books and tools they use during mass.

I thought it would be a lot of fun. I didn't know much about Catholicism (Aside from what I had seen in movies) and I thought it would be really cool to learn about how they worshipped.

At the time, all the different items and prayers was a bit overwhelming to remember. But one thing that did stick out that the Deacon (Who was leading the class) said was this:

"One thing that makes our communion different from the Protestants is that we believe that the bread and wine are Christ's real Blood and not his Symbolic. For Christ said himself "This is my Body and Blood."

At the time, I couldn't believe what he just said. "His ACTUAL body and blood? That's not possible. Jesus just meant it figuratively. This guy does NOT know his Bible very well".

Well, it took almost a decade for the Teenage know it all to finally  realized that the deacon actually knew what he was talking about.

When I started attending the Anglican Catholic Church, Father nick brought up the subject of communion (Or Eucharist as it's more commonly known in the more liturgical church) and explained that In The Anglican Catholic Church, it is believed to be that it is, in fact, real.

I pondered this a bit. When I was in the Charismatic church, I was told Catholics only knew tradition and religion, and not the Bible.

But I knew Father Nick knew his word. He's a former priest of the Roman Catholic church, and left when he saw the corruption. Hence why he became an Anglo Catholic.

And from what he explained, every tradition in the Anglican Catholic church had a Biblical reasoning for it.

I later also learned that it wasn't just the Roman Catholic or Anglican Catholic church that held this same belief.

Episcopalians and Lutherans hold the same belief. So, I decided to research myself. Does the Bible say that the bread and wine (Or crackers and grape juice) is the ACTUAL body and blood of Christ.

I obviously started with Luke 22:19.

"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

Only thing was,  growing up, I was taught that the "Do this in remembrance of me" part was Christ telling us, it was symbolic. So I kept digging.

John 6:52-58
"The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread^[a] the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”



That hit me. Christ said that it was, indeed, his body and blood.

It took me a while to comprehend. I would talk about this subject with some of my Evangelical friends, and most of the time would just scoff.

"Come on, April... We're not ACTUALLY eating Jesus! That makes no sense!:
"

And it didn't to me, for a while anyway. but then I remembered the old testament.

As a way of repentance for the Jews of the old testament, they would slaughter an animal. Sometimes cows, sometimes lambs,

 The reason why we no longer need to sacrifice our animals was because Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. He was the lamb of God.

In old testament times, after they slaughtered the animal, they wouldn't just throw it away. they feasted on the lamb. Lamb's and cows were considered clean. It was one of the reasons why They could not slaughter pigs and other animals considered unclean.

Christ was the purest lamb and we consume his body and blood as channels of grace through him and into ourselves.


So when does the bread and wine stop being bread and wine?

Well, different denominations have different theories.

In the A.C.C., it is believed that when the Priest lays his hands on the cup and bread and says "This is my body/ blood" then it truly becomes so.

It's one of the reason why we bow towards the altar before we take our seats in the pews. On the altar, is, for lack of a better term, a safe, with the pre transubstantiated bread. It's kept there for safe keeping for when the priest needs to give the Eucharist at a moment's notice.  We bow to show our respect because the presence of Christ is in the Sanctuary.  We kneel while taking communion as a sign of respect because we are eating Christ's body and drinking his blood.

I hope this clears some things up for some of my Evangelical friends out there.

Also, I just started up a Twitter Account. You can find me @vieledanglican .

May the Lord be with you.