Is the Eucharist a Symbol, or Is It Real? Why not both?

[Michie]

In the introduction to his classic Catholic Catechism, Fr. John Hardon describes well the perennial challenge of the Catholic Church to strike a balance between the manifold and false “either/or” propositions that constitute the great heresies and errors of Church history and what Fr. Hardon called the truth of “the eternal and.” For example, the pantheist says the universe consists of God alone. The material is mere illusion. The materialist says it is all and only matter. The truth is, it’s both. The Protestant says we are saved by “faith alone”; the various Pelagian sects say it is by “works alone.” The truth is, it’s both. The Monophysite says Jesus is God alone; the Arian (or the Jehovah’s Witness today) says he is man alone. The truth is, he’s both. The list could go on and on.

So it is with the Eucharist. For many, there are only two options. Either it is a symbol or it is Jesus. I know this was my thinking when I was Protestant. “When Jesus says, ‘This is my body,’ or ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man,’ it is obvious he is speaking symbolically,” I would say. “Bread and wine were to nature what Jesus Christ is to our super-nature. Bread and wine are obviously excellent symbols of Jesus Christ.” In my mind as a Protestant, if I could show communion to be symbolic, I had proved my point. The idea of “both/and” was never even a consideration.

Continued below.

Is the Eucharist a Symbol, or Is It Real?

Catholics can't dismiss the symbolic aspect of the Eucharist, especially when speaking with non-Catholics. It can be both real and symbolic!

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[Chrystal-J]

It is really the body of Christ. I had a dream where there was a huge Eucharist in front of me. The Eucharist was lit on one half and in dark shadow on the other half. A voice said "Half of what you do is holy, that other half is not." I feel that was Jesus speaking to me directly to clean up my act. (Which I have been working on.)