I Can Show You that the Eucharist is Indeed Jesus!

     Catholics (as well as Orthodoxies and some Anglicans) believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine. This can be very hard to believe, and many Catholics don't. This is unfortunate, because of how beautiful a gift that it is.
    Our Lord, on Holy Thursday, consecrated the Holy Eucharist when He said:
'This is My body, which will be given for you. Do this in memory of me.' And He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which will be poured out for you.' (Lk 22:19-20)
    I understand that this saying is sometimes taken as a metaphor. After all, Jesus said that he was a door in John 10:1. However, In John chapter 6, when Jesus says he is the Bread of Life (Jn 6:48-51), the Jews quarrel 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' (Jn 6:52) After reinforcing this statement, Jesus's followers leave him, saying 'This is a hard saying. Who can accept it?' (Jn 6:60). So this can't be a metaphor, because when Jesus said he was a door or a vine, nobody left Him, but knew he was speaking metaphorically. They leave Him once he says He is the Bread of Life, and in verse 55 'For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.' He wouldn't be saying His flesh and blood are real food if He was speaking in metaphors.
    Furthermore, in First Corinthians, the apostle Paul tells us, 'Therefore, anyone who eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner is guilty of an offense against the body and blood of the Lord.' (1 Cor:27) and, 'For a person who eats and drinks without discerning the body of the Lord is eating and drinking judgement on himself. (1 Cor:29). The Eucharist can't just be a symbol because St. Paul explicitly states the consequences for eating it unworthily. If it were a symbol, then you need not fear any consequences. But because this is God you're, you MUST NOT be in a state of serious sin in order to receive him lest you are Eating and drinking judgement upon yourself.
    The true presence of the Holy Eucharist was believed all throughout the first centuries after the death and resurrection of Christ. 
    For instance, St. Justin, Martyr (lived circa 100-165 A.D.) says,

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the Word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change if which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus. (First Apology, 66)

    Again, St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of St. John the apostle, writes in his letter to the Smyrnians:

They (the Gnostics) abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again. (7:1)

    Tim Staples, in his book Nuts and Bolts makes another really good argument for the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Keep in mind that Tim Staples is a convert from the Assemblies of God denomination. He says that for the sake of argument, go ahead and assume that Jesus's words in John chapter 6 were a metaphor. If the Jews took it this way, Christ would be a very bad teacher, because the terms 'Eat my flesh' and 'Drink my blood' were used throughout scripture to mean to persecute or harm. 

And I said: Hear, O ye princes of Jacob, and ye chiefs of the house of Israel: Is it not your part to know judgement, You that hate good, and love evil: that violently pluck off their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones? Who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin from off them: and have broken, and chopped their bones as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot. (Micah 3:1-3)

    Therefore, if Christ were speaking in Metaphors, and I quote from Nuts and Bolts, "...the Jews would have understood Him to be making an absurd statement: 'Unless you persecute and assault Me, you shall not have life in you. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you do violence to Me and kill Me, you shall not have life within you.' (Nuts and Bolts, page 37).

    In the Bible it condemns drinking blood in Leviticus, but Jesus Himself institutes a new covenant (Lk 22:20) and tells the people to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Being not only God, but also the ultimate High Priest, Jesus can and does change the old law. 'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you' (Jn 6:53).

    In conclusion, Jesus really is present in the Eucharist. It may be difficult to believe, by which we should act as the father of the possessed boy in Mark chapter 9 by saying, "I do believe. Help my belief."

    Thank you for reading this. I hope you find this article helpful, and I hope that you all become saints. God bless you!