THE EUCHARIST FROM BORN FUNDAMENTALIST, BORN AGAIN CATHOLIC BY DAVID M CURRIE

Catholics say bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Jesus during the Mass which is the same sacrifice as the cross of Jesus. 

In an examination of his book, I wrote that as it is enough to show the Catholic clergy has no authority, but has misappropriated it, to convince that its claims about the Mass are suspect and possibly downright false.

CURRIE SAYS, At the last supper had Jesus meant to teach Lutheranism, that the Eucharist contains the body of Christ but does not become it, he would have said, "This bread contains my body" or evangelicalism he would have said, "This bread represents my body" but he said it was his body so that is what it is (page 35).

THE TRUTH: Too bad Jesus couldn't use symbolism with people trying to read too much into it. The Bible never gives any hint that Jesus meant this literally. The Calvinists say, "This is my body," over bread without believing it becomes the body of Jesus and we don't say they should be saying, "This represents my body". So when they can do it why not Jesus?
 
And even if the Catholics are right it doesn’t prove their doctrine of transubstantiation to be true. Luther seems to have believed at times not that the substance of the bread turned into Jesus but that Jesus made the bread a part of him like your fingernail is part of you. This theory is called incarnationism.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Jesus' saying we must eat his body and drink his blood took place near Passover time just about a year before Jesus celebrated the last supper. This was to indicate that what would happen at the supper would be transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus (page 35).

THE TRUTH: Evidences like that are so weak that they are useless. The crowd were not at the last supper so there is no value in the books reasoning.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Jesus saying he was the bread of life was just an analogy. He says he will give this bread as his flesh for us to eat and that it is the same flesh that will be nailed to the cross (page 37). If the flesh we are to eat is figurative so is the flesh for the crucifixion (page 38). Jesus physically died on the cross so we physically eat his body.

THE TRUTH: The discourse never mentions that Jesus will die or become a sacrifice. The Roman Catholic faith teaches that it is Jesus' body and blood as they are now in their supernaturalised and resurrected state that is the Eucharist. So there is no need for Jesus to be dead or have been dead to feed us with his body and let us drink his blood.
 
He says his flesh will be given up for the life of the world which does not amount to saying he will be crucified or sacrificed.
 
He told the Jews that they cannot be saved unless they eat his body and drink his blood. If you take the passage literally then take this literally too. It was spoken to Jewish people who would mostly never become Christians. It is likely that none of them would when they all went away because of Jesus’ silly talk. If you are a missionary you do not tell you hearers to go to communion to be saved for they cannot do that unless they are believe repent and are baptised first. You give them the minimum. You certainly do not suggest anything that will puzzle them like yarns about food and drink becoming God or a man. The way Jesus spoke shows the passage is not literally true. When Jesus came close to teaching the Roman doctrine in this passage and retreated it shows only one thing: he does not want us to believe in it and it is blasphemous.
 
Eating the body of Jesus is a synonym for believing and drinking his blood is a synonym for accepting the suffering and love he offered to God to atone to him for sins.
 
CURRIE SAYS, The eating of flesh is literal for Jesus used the word chew for eat (page 38). This word was never used symbolically anywhere.

THE TRUTH: Any word can be used symbolically - that is what symbols mean: using words that are literal in a non-literal way! So he never used it symbolically anywhere you say! Jesus never wrote cookery books so what would you expect?
 
He would have to use the word chew in a literal context elsewhere so that we would be able to tell he meant it all literally according to the books logic. But he didn't so what does that say?
 
CURRIE SAYS, He who eats the bread without discerning the body eats judgment to himself 1 Cor 11) so this is clearly saying that we must see that the bread is the body of the Lord (page 39).

THE TRUTH: There were heretics around who didn’t believe Jesus was a man but thought that he was a vision. Paul could have meant without discerning that Jesus had a body not that the bread was the body. Paul would have written he who eats the bread without discerning that it is the body had he believed the bread turns into Jesus.
 
Discerning the body could also mean that the substance of the body of the Lord is fed to the soul of those who take the bread without it being in the bread. It could mean that the body of the Lord is spiritually fed to the eater of the bread which means eating the bread is as good as eating the body though the substance of the body is not eaten or given to the soul.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Satan worshipers parody the Mass because they know there is something in it and that Jesus established it as the centre of Christian life (page 45).

THE TRUTH: The Eucharist is the ritual at the heart of Christianity and naturally anti-Christians would parody it. Nearly all Satan worshippers believe that Christianity is superstitious nonsense. The use of real wafers consecrated at Masses is rare which illustrates the point. Their use is not an essential. Would Satanists believe that there is power in having the real body of God on the altar and desecrating it? If they believed it was God they would know that he would thwart them every time!
 
Spiritualist mediums do more to convince their flocks that they commune with the dead than priests ever do that Jesus becomes the communion wafer and yet they encourage the flock to disbelieve in mediums! It is frightening that people would believe the priests so easily and it is bigoted how they encourage it. The mediums have more right to the respect the priest demands. They are more believable in every way.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Melchizidek was said to be a priest forever and he offered bread and wine to God. Jesus was called by God a priest like Melchizidek so he offered bread and wine to God at the last supper (page 47).

THE TRUTH: Jesus did not offer bread and wine at the last supper - he just used them. How could you offer God created things? He owns them to start with and has no need of them. It would be a bizarre and eccentric thing to do. Melchizidek brought out bread and wine to Abraham for he was priest of God the Bible tells us. That does not mean he offered them to God.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Hebrews 10:3 and Leviticus 24:7 use the word remembrance to mean sacrifice so when Jesus said at the last supper do this in remembrance of me he meant offer this sacrifice for me (page 47).

THE TRUTH: Hebrews only says there is a reminder of sin in the sacrifices which does not mean that sacrifice and remembrance are necessarily inseparable. Remembrance and sacrifice are two separate activities. Jesus lived in different times from Leviticus and different times use words differently. Worse Leviticus was written in Hebrew and the gospels were written in Greek and worse again Jesus had been speaking in Aramaic! So there is no reason to believe the words for remembrance mean sacrifice as well.
 
CURRIE SAYS, The sacrifice of the Mass and the food and drink being literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ were unanimously believed in by the early Christians (49).

THE TRUTH: We know the early Christians had many divisions and we have barely any statements that show the Church believed what this book says and yet it says that the early Church was Roman Catholic in its eucharistic theology.