THE INSTITUTION OF THE BLESSED EUCHARIST IN THE GOSPEL
FROM JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST BY REV. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.Ss.R.
ST. MATTHEW 26: 26-28: " Whilst they were at supper Jesus took bread and blessed and broke and gave to His disciples and said: Take ye and eat, this is My body; and taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this, for this is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins."
ST. MARK 14:22-24: "Whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessing broke and gave to them and said: Take ye, this is My body. And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And He said to them: This is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many."
ST. LUKE 22: 19-20: "Taking bread, He gave thanks and broke and gave to them, saying: This is My body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me. In like manner the chalice also after He had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the New Testament in My blood, which shall be shed for you."
And now what was it that Jesus actually gave His apostles to eat? Was it bread? No, it could not be bread, for Jesus did not call it " bread," but called it " His body," for He said, " Take ye and eat, THIS is MY BODY." Had it been bread, as it appeared to be, Jesus Christ could not and would not have said, " THIS is MY BODY." Jesus Christ is God; He knows all things; He is Truth itself; He could not be mistaken; He could not utter a falsehood. Therefore, we must conclude that what He said was perfectly true. Hence, He, truly gave them His body to eat; mark, it was His true living body that He gave them to eat, for He said so; it was His very body, for He expressly declared that He gave them to eat " MY BODY WHICH is GIVEN FOR YOU," that is, which shall be sacrificed and shall die on the cross on the following day for the salvation of mankind.
The words Jesus Christ spoke over the chalice make this still more clear: " Drink ye all of this for this is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins." He expressly and clearly declared that He wished all His apostles to drink out of the chalice He held in His hands, not wine, but His real living blood which would be shed on the following day for the forgiveness of men's sins, for He said it: " THIS is MY BLOOD." Moreover, He calls it the " blood of the New Testament." The Old Testament, or Covenant of God with the Israelites, was dedicated by the shedding of the blood of a victim, a lamb, and sprinkling it over the people; but the New Testament was to be dedicated also by the shedding of the blood of a victim, the blood of Jesus, the " Lamb of God (John i: 29), and His blood was to wash away the sins of mankind. And it was this very same blood which Jesus expressly declares was contained in the chalice over which He pronounced these words: " Drink ye all of this, for THIS is MY BLOOD of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins."
Here we have the fulfillment of the promise our Divine Savior had made a year previous: " THE BREAD WHICH I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH for the life of the world. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Amen, amen, I say unto you: EXCEPT YOU EAT THE FLESH OF THE SON OF MAN AND DRINK His BLOOD, you shall not have life in you. My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in Him. He that eateth this bread shall live forever" (John 6:52-59). Therefore nothing can be more evident than the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist.
He who would give any other meaning to the words of our Divine Saviour, either in the promise He made of the Blessed Eucharist, or in the words He used in its Institution, would, therefore, distort the natural sense of His words and make Him contradict Himself. In order to justify their denial of the Real Presence, the translators of the version of the Bible, known as King James* Bible, did not shrink from corrupting the text of the Evangelists on the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist, for they added thereto words which were calculated to show that Jesus Christ did not give to His apostles His body to eat or His blood to drink, but only a little bread to eat and a little wine to drink. How did they do this? By purposely interpolating the word it, where the Evangelists had not written it. They did it in this way: " Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to His disciples." Those who would read this version would conclude therefrom that Jesus took bread and blessed the bread and gave the bread to His disciples and nothing more than bread, whilst telling them to eat, for " this is My body." They thus deceived all their followers, and represented Jesus to them as contradicting Himself, or telling a falsehood. What a terrible responsibility rests on those translators and their abettors for so grossly deceiving their readers and leading them into a most pernicious and damnable error!
