Living the Catholic Faith!

Protestant: “Why do you Catholics go for mass every day? Mass is not biblical. Jesus does not change bread and wine into His own body and blood. There is no real presence. It’s only symbolic. It’s not magic.

Catholic: Of course, His presence is real! Why did Jesus say in John 6 “My flesh is real food and my blood is true drink?”

Protestant: “You cannot interpret it literally. When Jesus said in John 10:1 that He is the door; do you believe that He has hinges and a doorknob on His body? Or in John 15:1 where He said that He is vine and we are the branches; do you take Him literally there? If not; why do you take Him literally in John 6?”

Catholic: If that is true why did His listeners say “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” In the cases of Him saying He is a “door” or a “vine” we find no one asking, “How can this man be a door made out of wood or how can this man claim to be a plant?” In fact in John 6:41, we read that the Jews ‘murmured’ about His teachings. Moreover in John 6:51 Christ reinforces the literal sense “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”.

Do you believe in the Ascension of the Lord?

Protestant: Yes I do!

Catholic: Acts 1:9-10 speaks of Jesus ascending. The Ascension of Jesus was it symbolic or literal? When Jesus questioned his disciples (Jn 6:67) “Do you also want to leave?” His apostles knew that He was speaking literally. Since the presence of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine is real St. Paul writes, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord…” (1Cor 11:27-29)

Protestant: The so called “Real” presence of this “Literal” sense was never held by the early Church.

Catholic: “Are you advertising your ignorance? The ‘real presence’ of Christ in the Holy Eucharist was not only believed but also taught by the Church. The ‘symbolic’ sense was never held by the Church. In fact the literal sense was the only sense in which the early Church understood it. If it was symbolic why does the Coptic Church (Egypt) and Orthodox church (Jerusalem,　Antioch,　Alexandria,　Constantinople,　Armenia,　Georgia,　Ethiopia, Russia and Romania) hold it as literal?

For your kind information St. Ignatius of Antioch a disciple of St. John the Apostle and successor of St. Peter as bishop of Antioch wrote in 107 AD; “they, the heretics abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our savior Jesus Christ.” (Cf., Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, 6). So according to St. Ignatius since you do not believe in the Eucharist you are a heretic. Get behind me Satan.”

Protestant: “Look you haven’t convinced me yet. Do you know what John 6:63 says? It says “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Catholic: “My dear, the Greek word (pneuma) is never used in scripture to mean symbolic. John 4:24 says that God is ‘spirit’. Does He mean that God is symbolic? Hebrew 1:14 speaks of angels as ‘spirit’. Are angels merely symbolic?

Protestant: “But Jesus said that He is the Bread of life and that whoever came to Him would never hunger and that whoever believed in Him would never thirst. That’s exactly what we are doing. In our church we come to Jesus. ‘Coming’ to Jesus is what He really means by ‘eating’ and believing in Him is what He really means by ‘drinking’. Not by your symbolic breaking of the bread…

Catholic: “Coming and believing” are definitely important requirements for having His life but not the only ones. It would be a sacrilege to receive the Eucharist without believing (1Cor 11:27-29). This does not wipe away His other important statements where He says that His flesh is the real food and His blood as the real drink. You cannot quote the Bible out of context. When you do as you are doing now it becomes a pretext.

Protestant: What about Leviticus 17:10? It condemns “eating blood”. When you drink the so called blood of Jesus you are breaking Leviticus Law.

Catholic: We are Christians and not Jews. We do not come under Levitical law. We are now under the ‘law of Christ’. Rom 8:2 says “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. Besides Heb 7:11-12 tells us that the Levitical Law has passed away with the coming of the New Covenant. Christ supersedes the OT law. This is exactly what we see in John 6. The blood prohibition in Lev 17:11-12 was replaced by Christ’s new teaching in Jn 6:54 “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall have no life in you.” Catholic Church doors are open for you. Better late than never. Choice is yours.