The idea of the Real Presence makes my Christian dad very uncomfortable

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hope7
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Hope7

Guest
Hey everyone! I’m a Christian who has had a meandering-yet-growing interest in Catholicism the past two years. In the times when I’ve become so exhausted along my journey, and have found myself so desperately wanting to push my Catholic-questions aside, the Eucharist has been the main concept which has continually brought me back.

However, when I talk to my dad (who’s a devoted non-Catholic Christian) about the idea of the ‘Real Presence’, it makes him uncomfortable. Frankly, it grosses him out. He just doesn’t want to do that to Jesus.

The thing is, I get where he’s coming from. It is a pretty gross idea, though I also see the beauty in it…For him though, he’s lived his Christian life loving Jesus as a person without this concept at all. I can totally sympathize with his disorientation at the idea of literally “eating His flesh”.

My question is, is there anyway to communicate to my dad the beauty you Catholics believe is behind this idea? Or is it a miracle I must pray for? Or, is it even that important how one views this topic? Finally, do any of you any testimonies from a similar situation with either you or a loved one?

My dad is super important to me, and if I ever become Catholic, it would be such a blessing to share this belief—or even understanding of this belief—with him. He truly does love Jesus.

Anyways, thanks for any of your advice!! God bless
 
Last edited:
Hope7 said:
Hey everyone! I’m a Christian who has had a meandering-yet-growing interest in Catholicism the past two years. In the times when I’ve become so exhausted along my journey, and have found myself so desperately wanting to push my Catholic-questions aside, the Eucharist has been the main concept which has continually brought me back.

However, when I talk to my dad (who’s a devoted non-Catholic Christian) about the idea of the ‘Real Presence’, it makes him uncomfortable. Frankly, it grosses him out. He just doesn’t want to do that to Jesus.

The thing is, I get where he’s coming from. It is a pretty gross idea, though I also see the beauty in it…For him though, he’s lived his Christian life loving Jesus as a person without this concept at all. I can totally sympathize with his disorientation at the idea of literally “eating His flesh”.

My question is, is there anyway to communicate to my dad the beauty you Catholics believe is behind this idea? Or is it a miracle I must pray for? Or, is it even that important how one views this topic? Finally, do any of you any testimonies from a similar situation with either you or a loved one?

My dad is super important to me, and if I ever become Catholic, it would be such a blessing to share this belief—or even understanding of this belief—with him. He truly does love Jesus.

Anyways, thanks for any of your advice!! God bless
Click to expand...
Ordinarily when a person consumes bread or wine, there is the real presence of bread and wine, because that is what it is, and also has the corresponding appearance.

When a person receives communion there is the real presence of Jesus Christ, because that is what it is, but here, miraculously, is the appearance of bread or wine, not the body and blood and soul and divinity.
 
Last edited:
One image that might be helpful is that of a mother feeding her child with and from her own body. Of course the mother is not harmed, injured or otherwise lessened (nor is Jesus), but her body does nourish the child. Of course no analogy is perfect, but see how he responds to this idea.
 
It is important to remember that in comsuming the Eucharist, we do no harm to Jesus. If a communion wafer is split in two or four pieces, we are not dividing Jesus. He is whole and entire in each particle of the Eucharist. We consume the appearances of bread and wine. Jesus remains whole and entire and unharmed and undivided.
 
Oh, I’ve never thought of it like that before…That’s very helpful, for me at least. Hopefully it will be for my dad as well! Thank you so much for sharing
 
We are all cells in the Body of Christ. The cells in your body need your blood to live. It’s not cannibalism, it’s metabolism.
 
Denying the real presence is a recent innovation in the faith. Its genesis was in Europe, with the reformation amounting to little more than an attack on the Eucharist.

Jesus commanded us to eat and drink. Was Jesus being “gross”?
"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood…

…you have no life in you."
Click to expand...
Now that should make both of you uncomfortable.
 
The disciples that left Jesus in that moment also thought it was gross. He could have downplayed it and made them feel more comfortable. Instead he repeated for the fifth or sixth time, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” This is the main reason why I could no longer be Protestant after my entire life of 37 years. There are many more reasons but this one I could no longer rationalize away.

edit @po18guy beat me to it. I need to learn to type faster!
 
Last edited:
It is by far the weirdest but also the most important Catholic belief. I think reading John chapter 6 and meditating on what Jesus is teaching can work wonders for Christians who have a strong faith in the Bible. It is a commandment. Christ offers as a sacrifice the substance of his humanity and divinity as a complete and perfect person so as to give us the grace to perfect our own fallen humanity. We don’t harm or change him in any way. Tim Staples wrote an article about why it isn’t cannibalism: Are Catholics Cannibals? | Catholic Answers
 
Last edited:
For one of the best explanations on earth, Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen explains the mass, at which time the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Pay special attention to his explanation that lower life forms must consume or be assumed into higher life forms in order to share in the nature of that higher life form. And what life form is higher than Christ, the Most High?
 
It is not about how we feel, it us about what Christ commanded. Read John chapter 6 (particularly from verse 35 onwards) and consider what Christ us literally calling us to do. Then when on hearing this teaching many of his disciples walked away from him, what was Jesus’s reaction? Did he call after them telling them not to worry, that he was only talking metaphorically?
 
Last edited:
Tell him to think of the Real Presence just as he would consuming vitamins in a carrot. You can not see vitamin A, or vitamin K, but the substance is there in every bite. You believe it not with your eyes or taste buds but because a scientist said so and you have faith in what the scientist says. So to with Jesus, we consume His substance in a way that nourishes us without relying on our senses. If we believe the scientists about what is in the carrot, how much more are we to believe Jesus about the Bread & Wine becoming His Body & Blood. Carrots are good for you, Jesus is better than all the vitamins combined. Nothing gross about the substance of Christ or in the way He gives us His substance, and by the way, He is God, and He has control over every atom and cell.
 
The Eucharist is a mystery that cannot be fully explained. Jesus gave us this great gift for our spiritual benefit. It takes faith to sccept it.
 
Neithan said:
Tim Staples wrote an article about why it isn’t cannibalism: Are Catholics Cannibals? | Catholic Answers
Click to expand...
The old “cannibalism” canard is a kneejerk reaction, and an immature if not childish one at that. Cannibalism is the killing and taking for one’s own pleasure. We neither kill not take. We are commanded by Christ to receive what was willingly given for us and it is God Who is pleased.
 
Last edited:
My husband and I converted from Evangelical Protestantism (47 years) to Catholicism

I would suggest that you and your Dad do a study of the Old Testament, especially the first five books (Pentateuch), particularly the establishment of Passover and the customs surrounding the raising, sacrifice, and meaning of "eating the Passover Lamb.

Then do a study of the New Testament (Gospels), paying attention especially to John 6, and the various descriptions of Jesus and His disciples at their Last Passover in the Upper Room.

If you and your Dad are members of a Protestant church that values Bible study, you will both make the connections and understand why “Communion” is not just a symbolic ceremony to re-commit your life to Jesus. It’s “the New Covenant” that replaced the Old Covenant.

I also hope that your Dad is attending a Mass with you once in a while. It’s possible that He will recognize Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (the Bread and Wine)–that’s what happened to both my husband me. We KNEW that it was Jesus up there because we had known Him as our Lord and Savior since we were children. We had loved and served Him for decades, and when we actually saw Him (in the Bread and Wine) we KNEW it was Him!
 
Last edited:
I can very much relate to your experience with your father. I became Catholic 6 years ago, but my 84-year-old father (life-long Baptist) also finds the teaching on the eucharist “uncomfortable”, so much so that he really doesn’t want to talk about it (or other Catholic teachings).

I think some of it has to to with the “comfort level” with which we were raised. I suspect that if my father had never heard in his 84 years that a man was God in the flesh, but was suddenly confronted with that truth, he would also find that very hard to accept.
 
Scripture says that Jesus said people would have to “eat” (actually the word he used was similar to “gnaw on” ) his “flesh” or they would not have life within them.
This was a hard teaching for people even at the time. Scripture says a lot of them got up and left Jesus at that point.

Think of it as us uniting ourselves fully to Jesus and his experience. We take God into our bodies. And Jesus remains intact throughout. We don’t cut off a piece of him and eat it.

It is basically union with God. It isn’t gross.
It is also doing what Jesus literally told us to do, in Scripture.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps your father would be more comfortable with the idea of Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, if we were only asked to kneel down before the Eucharist or to touch it with our hand or to kiss it with our lips because we are more familiar with those levels of intimacy with other people and they were the sort of levels of intimacy that people showed to Jesus before his death and resurrection. In asking us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which because he is now glorified can in no way harm or diminish him, Jesus is calling us to an even greater level of intimacy with him than is naturally possible for us with other people.
 
That which we eat & drink becomes a part of every living cell in our body. On the non-Catholic side of the aisle, they stress receiving Jesus into our hearts. As a Catholic, I have him on that spiritual level in my heart, but as good & profound as that is, I have even more of Jesus in me. I have him, body, blood, soul, and divinity within me. It is a more profound union with Christ. It’s shockingly beautiful. It seems Jesus is not content with only a spiritual union with me. He wants to become a part of everything that I am. He makes me holy on every level, body and soul.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top