Easter and the Eucharist

As we enter the last phase of Lent and ready ourselves for Easter, a thought occurred to me last night.

Non-Catholics struggle mightily with the idea of the Eucharist, of Jesus being truly present in the bread and wine turned body and blood. Non-Catholics believe it to be a symbol, not a real sacrifice.

In Exodus, at the original Passover, the Jews had to sacrifice and eat the lamb in order to overcome death. If they sacrificed the lamb but ate only a symbolic lamb, for example lamb shaped cookies as Scott Hahn equates in his book The Lambs Supper, then their firstborns died. Consumption of the lamb was required to be freed from death.

So, Jesus, as the Lamb of God, understood this and is why, Catholics believe, told the apostles during the last supper that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood and to continue this tradition "in memory" of him. Like the original Passover lamb, consuming Jesus would allow us to be freed from death caused by sin.

But, all that aside, Catholics also turn to the Gospel of John for validation of the Eucharist. In this Gospel, prior to his passion, Jesus told thousands of followers that he was the "bread of life" and his "flesh was true food" and his "blood true drink." Non-Catholics believe that Jesus was speaking figuratively, not literally, even though he offers no further explanation to Peter and the Apostles.

The apostles apparently believed Jesus was speaking literally because within one generation of Jesus resurrection what is equivalent to the Catholic mass was already in place (see St. Justin's letter to Antonio Pius).

So, what was the thought that occurred to me last night?

Let's say Jesus WANTED to speak literally, then I would ask Non-Catholics, what SHOULD he have said to communicate his wish other than what he says in John...

I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert,
but they died;this is the bread that comes down from
heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is
my flesh for the life of the world."

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me and I have life
because of the Father, so also the one who
feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever."

If Jesus wanted his flesh and blood to be consumed as a paschal sacrifice, then how else could he have communicated it, what more could he have said? What words was he missing?

Anyway... that's what I was thinking about last night.