In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Emily Dinenny to discuss the challenges surrounding the Catholic belief in the Eucharist. Emily addresses a Baptist caller’s concerns about the implications of drinking blood in light of Old Testament laws and the teachings of Jesus in John 6.
Transcript:
Caller: Kind of biggest reasons I could never see my way into the Catholic Church. Now, the one that I’ll. I’ll bring up is the idea of the true blood and body of Christ inside of what you guys would call the Eucharist. In reading the Old Testament, you see, you shall not drink the blood. If you look at any of the blood of the sacrifices, no one drank the blood ever at any point. And God said not to drink the blood. But in the New Testament, it would seem as though at the first council of Jerusalem, when they said, here’s the things that you’re not supposed. Supposed to do. Don’t eat the sacrifice, don’t eat bud, etc. Etc. There’s no exception made. And it seems to me that the apostles would have, you know, come out and said, hey, you know, except, of course, at. When we do the Eucharist. Excuse me, the Eucharist, the blood of Christ. But there’s no exceptions made. So it doesn’t seem to me like how you could get out of that. Oh, we’re gonna. True blood.
Cy Kellett: Could I ask you, because I know that there must be a Baptist answer to this, but I do not know. I’m sincere. I’m not trying to trick. I don’t know the answer to. In John chapter 6, when Jesus says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, how would you take the drink my blood part?
Caller: No, that’s fine. You know, Jesus. It was prophesied and confirmed in the New Testament that Jesus would speak in parables and that he would speak. That he would speak in parables and, you know, kind of euphemisms and such that. That that’s how he would communicate with people. And even the apostle said, like, but, you know, this is a hard thing for you to. To say or for us to accept. And when he explained, these are the, you know, my words are spirit in our life, they said, oh, now you’re speaking plainly. Like, okay, now. Now we understand.
Emily Dinenny: I see. So I got you.
Caller: I don’t think you can say that he was speaking literally.
Cy Kellett: Victoria. Thank you. This was actually a really good point. The apostles at the Council of Jerusalem forbid the drinking of blood. And you Catholics say you’re drinking the blood of Christ. So how would a Catholic respond to that?
Emily Dinenny: Yes. So it is very much true that in Leviticus that it is commanded that you do not eat the blood. And it says the reason for that is, quote, for the blood is the life. And it also goes on to say, you shall not eat the life with the flesh. So it seems to be there’s this kind of understanding that the blood is not just some substance, right. But it truly is conveying the life of the animal. And in the same way, I would say it’s even more fitting. That’s why Christ tells us to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. Because when we do that, we receive the eternal life that comes from that, and that is our. And that is our sustenance. And I will say in John chapter six, there isn’t really a resolution that is given by Christ. In fact, when people start to question and say that this sounds crazy, the disciples are murmuring amongst themselves. Jesus says, well, do you take offense at this? And he kind of doubles down, and he goes on to explain that it is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe. And after this, it says in verse 66, many of the disciples drew back and no longer went about with him because they could not accept this teaching that he was saying, which is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood the same way that the forefathers ate the manna, the bread from heaven. And Jesus compares himself to that and says, you know, your forefathers, they ate the manna and they died. But those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, because I am the bread of life, shall never die. And so we come to, you know, the Book of Acts and them kind of deciding that the Gentiles should abstain from. There’s a few different things they say to abstain from, it says, pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood. And of course, a few of these things, yeah, they’re. They’re always wrong, right? Like unchastity, for example, or idol worshiping. But when it comes to the way that certain animals are strangled or from blood, this really was kind of a disciplinary measure that the apostles instituted so that the Gentiles and the Jews could kind of harmoniously live with one another. It wasn’t something that was intended to be permanent because we also see that later on, St. Paul says that, you know, depending on your conscience, it could be okay to eat meat from animals that were sacrificed to pagan gods or something. So I would say this is definitely a disciplinary measure. Also, you could interpret blood, the blood that is speaking about metaphorically as murder. So it doesn’t necessarily have to mean literal blood. So I wouldn’t take that as, you know, kind of A. Oh, see, clearly the apostles don’t think that the, the Eucharist is truly Jesus’s body and blood because they forbid the drinking of blood. It’s clear in the context what, what they’re talking about, which is kind of the Gentile practice of doing something that would have been offensive to the Jews. When it comes to the Eucharist as a whole, I would say it’s hard to dismiss John 6 plus what happens at the Last Supper, which is Jesus holding up the bread and holding up the chalice of wine and saying that this is his body, this is his blood. And then St. Paul goes on to say in First Corinthians that this is, that this is why many of you are sick and some of you have died because you, you ate and the bread and the wine in an unworthy manner, and as a result, you profaned the body and blood of Our Lord. So St. Paul is saying people died from treating Holy Communion in an unworthy manner. And he any insinuates, you know, he says, whatever you did to the bread and the wine, you. You profaned our Lord. When you did that, you profaned his body and blood, implying that what you do to the Eucharist, you do to God because the Eucharist is God. So I’m curious to hear kind of your responses to the Last Supper in particular and what St. Paul is saying in First Corinthians about people dying from eating Holy Communion in an unworthy manner.
Caller: Well, I think that, you know, if you. Again, kind of the example that comes to mind for me is from the Old Testament where Aaron’s two sons offer unauthorized fire in front of, in front of the, the tabernacle and, you know, to God and he says, you know, he burns them with fire. Right. I don’t. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that when God gives commandments, I fear this is something you’re going to do and he gives you. This is how I want you to do it too. I don’t think it would be unusual for him to burn someone up. He might be thinking, well, what does it have to do with it? It’s, you know, I don’t think it has to be as serious as drinking his literal blood in order to, to warrant death or, or some sort of earthly ailment or punishment for us. So I don’t, I don’t think that that’s necessary for that to. For I don’t think it has to be necessarily his blood to warrant that sort of Retribution. However, I would say that I apologize. I’m slightly nervous. My watch said my heart.
Emily Dinenny: Right. It’s okay.
Emily Dinenny: You were making us nervous because you were killing these points.
Caller: But.
Emily Dinenny: All right, go ahead, Victoria.
Caller: So as far as reading it, I think I would also bring up the point that Paul also brings up that he says, you do this in remembrance of me. Not. It’s not meant to be a literal eating. And I would also kind of hearken back to the fact that the Lord’s Supper is. I think you guys would agree with this, but is kind of a New Covenant version of the Passover, where the lamb was slain and the Passover meal was eaten. Passover sacrifice wasn’t done as a. As a, you know, to forgive sins. I mean, it would have been a sin not to do it because they were commanded to do this in memory of God’s work bringing them out of Egypt. But that was done every year as a remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, not as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. There were other sacrifices for that. So I think that when you look at the example that was set and the fact that it says both in Corinthians and in Luke, you know, hey, do this in remembrance of me. I think there’s something to be said for that. I also think it would be very unusual if Jesus would give to Judas, you know, his body and his blood at the Last Supper.
Emily Dinenny: Victoria’s well prepared.
Caller: He’s about to betray him.
Emily Dinenny: Do you want. I can send. I can send her a book if you want. But did you want to address all of it?
Caller: Because.
Emily Dinenny: No, I would love. I would love to address it. Yes. So I very much appreciate you bringing up the Paschal Lamb and the Passover because it’s a very perfect analogy for the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. So, of course, you have the original Passover event, right, where the Israelites are commanded to slaughter a pure lamb, to smears blood on the wood of their door frame, and then to eat the flesh of their lamb, and the angel of death would pass over to them, where they are then led through the waters of the Red Sea onto their journey to the promised Land, where they are nourished by bread from heaven with manna. And on the flip side, we see that, you know, we are also slaves, not like the Israelites, literally slaves to the Egyptians, but we’re slaves to sin. And the Lamb of God has come. And this Lamb of God is Christ, obviously, He is. It is pure. And he is nailed to the wood of a cross. And it’s through his blood that the angel of eternal death passes over us, we are led to eternal life, and that we are also nourished with the bread of life on our way to the promised land, which is heaven. Now, of course, the original Passover only happened once, but every year after that, the Jews had to commemorate it by still killing a lamb and eating the lamb’s flesh. And in the same way, right, we can be remembering the original, you know, crucifixion and resurrection while also still literally eating the flesh of the lamb. And that’s exactly what’s happening every single time we attend Mass. And so it can be both a commemoration, something that we’re remembering, but also an actual event that we’re participating in. And because God, of course, exists beyond time, space, and matter, we’re able to kind of experience that all at once. We’re able to experience and kind of be transported, if you will, to the one true sacrifice that happened at Calvary. That’s what happens every time we eat the Eucharist. How does that resonate? Like those two things are in contradiction with one another. And in fact, it’s even more fitting that we’re truly eating the flesh of the lamb, because that’s what the Jews would do when they commemorated Passover.
Caller: Okay, so just real briefly, I mean, yes, the flesh of the lamb was eaten. We would consider that, you know, consuming the Word because Jesus was the Word made flesh. And so we consume the Word and consume the body of Christ. But the Jews still didn’t drink the blood of the lamb. They marked their doorposts with it. As we believe once we’re saved, we are marked with the blood of Jesus, the blood of the lamb. So. And that’s our entrance into. Into the body of Christ.
Cy Kellett: I gotta say that this is one of the most valuable conversations I have really enjoyed learning how a Baptist looks at all of this, because I didn’t know all of that that you told me. Victoria and I think you’ve given us a great opportunity to present how a Catholic looks at it. And we couldn’t ask for much more than that. I’d love to continue this conversation sometime. You’re always welcome to call back. Reason I’m kind of saying goodbye is because you can hear the music starting.