What Would the Body and the Blood Literally Mean?

“Protestants don’t really believe everything Christ said,” a staunch Roman Catholic said to me. “He said, ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood.’ But Protestants don’t take that literally, like they say they take the rest of the Bible.”

Besides his many other opinions on things Catholic vs Protestant, this was the most critical challenge brought to me by this person. (I think perhaps somewhere in this person’s past, someone as a Protestant greatly offended him, and that has brought a root of bitterness into his outlook that has guided his religious life.)

But because of this statement, my thoughts turned to the teaching he referred to, the central dogma of the Roman Catholic faith: transubstantiation, the belief and teaching that when a priest consecrates the host and wine during Mass, they transform into the “literal” physical body and blood of Jesus. So consequently, when the priest raises his just-consecrated host and says, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” it is to be worshipped as Jesus. (Either this is true worship, or most grievous idolatry—if God does not overlook it as a mere fallacy.)

Now either this teaching is true or it is not (obviously). His claim is that the scriptures teach this, that the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper were to be taken literally, not metaphorically, to establish this transubstantiation doctrine as scriptural.

I am not writing this to attack anyone’s faith. I know many devout Catholics who, aside from their particular dogmas, I would say give sufficient evidence of having a heart faith relationship to Christ. Perhaps God has grace for many of our false beliefs, fallacies and misconceptions, as long as they do not turn us to sin against God’s moral law.

Anyway, let’s see what in my mind must be the implications of the reality of this if the words of Jesus were to be taken literally, and what happens at a Catholic Mass is true.

I will start with the Body of Christ. Jesus said of the bread he broke and gave to the disciples, “This is my body, broken for you.” Now, here’s what we know of Jesus’ body in its current situation. Christ’s body was raised from the dead—his body is currently in heaven, and it is made up of cells with DNA that can be traced all the way back to king David. Also, there are a finite number of cells in Jesus’ body that had been offered on the cross and rose again, otherwise, the humanity of Christ is no longer truly humanity. Glorified it may be, but still human, and his cells do not need to reproduce, because they will not die, they are raised incorruptible. All this is straight from the Bible.

Now, if the consecration of the hosts in Mass is to be literally the body of Christ, they must be his real body cells, with the cytoplasm, DNA and all, otherwise it is not literally his body. If we say, it is a re-creation of his body, like a clone of the original, then it is not a literal true fulfillment of the scripture. For it has to be his real body to be literally true.

So Christ’s body cells must be taken from his body in heaven constantly, to be transferred somehow (by angels?) to earth to be “put” into the substratum of the host or bread being consecrated. (By the way, why aren’t the words of consecration in Aramaic or Hebrew, instead of Latin?) Otherwise, there are not enough “real” cells of Jesus’ body to make millions of hosts turn into his literal body all around the world every hour of every day. Then these cells are being eaten, and they need to be removed supernaturally from the recipients’ stomachs before being digested, so they may be re-used into another consecrated batch of hosts soon later. This all seems rather absurd to me, rather than a mystery.

So which is a literal fulfillment of Jesus’ words?

Jesus’ body broken on the Cross.

or        

Cloned cells of Jesus (not broken).

By the way, accurate knowledge of human anatomy and the laws of physics and chemistry were mainly unknown in the time of Gregory the Great, the man who promulgated this doctrine into a full fledged dogma in the Catholic Church. But, maybe you can get away with replicated body cells here, or “proxy” body cells.

However, when it comes to the blood, there are very specific terms to keep in line with if we are to take it literally. In the Gospel of Mark the words of Christ are very pointed: “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” Mark 14:24. Note the words: if it is literally his blood, then is is literally shed.

Now at this first consecration, Jesus had not shed his blood yet. But we are to take this literally. That means that the blood in that cup (which must be literally what was now in that cup, if transubstantiation is true) was the blood of Jesus that was going to be shed during his passion and on the cross, otherwise it is not literally true. So, I repeat, if then and there it was his actual blood, it must be, for it to be true, that that blood in that cup was going to be shed on the cross. Somehow, that blood had to get from that cup back into Jesus’ veins (before it could be digested in the disciples’ stomachs) and be there in his body to be spilled out for sins at the crucifixion.

Jesus only had about 10 pints of blood in his body that was shed during his passion and crucifixion. Now if the blood in all the consecrated chalices in every Roman Catholic Mass is truly Jesus’ blood, it must be the blood that was shed. Proxy, cloned blood cannot be what is there, because it would never have been shed for sins at the cross. I’m just keeping it literal, now.

Which is the true “literal” fulfillment of this scripture? Which is the actual blood of Christ that was shed?

10 pints of blood in Jesus’ veins.          
(Shed on the cross and during his passion.)

 or
      
Tons of cloned blood, copies of the original          
blood. (Never shed at the cross.)

So, if these things are so, the cloning of his body and blood cells is not sufficient to be a literal fulfillment of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and therefore is no more “literal” than a metaphor. For a clone of his cells, may look and be in all other respects the same, but they were never in his body, nor ever suffered nor were shed at the cross.

So, in my mind, to hold onto this belief, you must pile on absurdity on top of absurdity to make it consistent with its claims.