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Robert Barron | – Bishop Barron on Catholics Misunderstanding the Eucharist

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Robert Barron
By Bishop Robert Barron
48 Comments

Explore a collection of my resources on the Eucharist here: [support us]

It’s hard to describe how angry I feel after reading the latest Pew Forum study, which reveals only one-third of Catholics agree with the Church that the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Christ. This should be a wake-up call to all of us in the Church—priests, bishops, religious, laypeople, catechists, parents, everyone—that we need to pick up our game when it comes to communicating even the most basic doctrines of the Church. Watch this video for more…

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About The Author

Bishop Robert Barron These are brief and insightful commentaries on faith and culture by Catholic theologian and author Bishop Robert Barron. The videos complement his weekly sermons posted and podcasted at WordOnFire.org.

Comment (48)

  4. I'm one of the 75% who don't believe in the true presence. I used to, because when I was younger I believed I was supposed to because I was told to. I of my own free will truly never did. I haven't been to communion in over a year.

  5. The people get their understanding from their surroundings and the liturgy, sacramentality and sacredness has always been the center of Catholic theology. If you strip the Church of all its sacred art, introduce a small table instead of a beautiful altar, remove the altar rails so noone can kneel and then give people communion in the hand you don't communicate "this is the most High God, humbling himself in the Eucharist for us" instead you imply: this is bread we are giving out to show solidarity and its also fine to wear jeans and sneakers because this isn't very important". Sunday Best and observing the Sabbath has also disappeared. If you get too casual you send the signal: this is not a BIG DEAL. No surprise when noone believes in the Real Presence. I am a convert and love to go to churches where I can kneel at the altar rail to receive Jesus ❤ as Bishops have been shocked by the lack of belief by Catholics I hope more sacred traditions are reintroduced. We can still be warm and welcoming while returning to the sacred > the two go together.

  6. I was never taught about the origin of the Eucharist in the manna the Jews were fed with for forty years every day during in their time of wandering in the desert. The temple in Jerusalem contained the Holy of Holies and within that were contained the Ark of the Covenant, a golden urn containing manna, and the golden lampstand or menorah. The Catholic Mass itself is patterned on the bloodless sacrifice of thanksgiving that is, of bread (manna) and wine, that was offered by the Jewish priests in the temple.
    As a young Catholic person in a Catholic parochial school, I was never taught that Jesus was a Jew. We were brought up to believe that anyone non-Catholic was going to Hell. I never learned anything in Catholic school about the Eucharist's origins except the story about the Last Supper which was related not as a Jewish Passover meal but rather as if Jesus originated the Eucharist himself. And he didn't. Jewish priests in the temple at Jerusalem were performing the 'bloodless sacrifice' of the Eucharist using manna and wine from the Holy of Holies long before Jesus was even born. And they also would perform an 'exposition' of the bread (manna) as a show of the face of God, or the Love of God. What we are taught about the Eucharist in Catholic terms, brushing aside its rich Jewish origins, is only a superficial fragment of the real story so it's no wonder Catholic people themselves are unlikely to understand the true meaning of it. Too much is left out.

  7. Question? I have read about The Last Supper in the Bible. My question is, where do you get all of your ceremonial traditions for the Eucharist from? I have never found them in the Bible. I really would like to understand. I have a family member who is Catholic but if I ask questions he or she will get very defensive.

  9. I am not a Catholic. The other Christian faith don’t receive Eucharist with the same deep meaning as Catholic. I started going to Catholic Church because my son became Catholic and I am curious about it. There things that absolutely love but others that it is hard to accept in order to become Catholic again. I was Catholic at the birth. From what read on the Bible the Virgin Mary was the most blessed woman but it says that Jesus had brothers. Also the adoration of Saints is a another hard concept to me. To me the only way to the Father is through the Son. I understand and respect the Catholic view. I just struggle because I would like to be a Catholic with my son.
    I think many people go to the mass and they are not there. That happens in many churches. Some people take the Eucharist in automatically mode . My son confess before it and knows that Jesus is there during the break of bread and wine. He follows everything in the book.
    Thank you father Baron . Thank you Lord.

  10. This is a bit older, and Bishop Barron and I don't see eye to eye on everything, but I love him in this video.
    The Eucharist is very important. Most voices focus on the negative and this video does the same, but he at least talks about what used to unite Catholics and what Catholics should be united in. United in Christ, in Deed, in Spirit, in Mind, and in the Body and Blood too.

  11. It's a pretty mind-blowing concept that's hard to understand because it's a reality beyond our experience. Like the Trinity, it's difficult to get the mind around, but on a very deep level, it's an exciting revelation.

  13. You can start hearing from your guardian angel if you will ask him to
    teach you to hear from angels. We have been hearing from our angels and
    we know it is a beautiful experience. Do not be afraid of asking your
    guardian angel to teach you to hear him.

  14. I was listening to a resource speaker on the faith, and he read the scripture:
    John 6:66.
    Familiar with the number? Rabid anti-Catholics like the Seventh Day Adventists
    and Born Agains refer to the pope as the anti-Christ, with the number 666.
    Hey, I just found out, John 6:66 is the scripture about Christ proclaiming the bread as his body and the wine as His blood.
    And THOSE WHO DID NOT BELIEVE HIM were mentioned in:
    John 6:66 "As a result of this many of His disciples left, and would no longer walk with Him."
    Coincidence? The anti Christ are actually those who reject the eucharist!

  15. We teach 6th graders in Catechism class
    About global warming and environmental activism and then we are shocked when Catholics are uneducated.
    My local Catholic Church
    Has banned confession because wait for it……..
    COVID.

  16. As Catholics we hear that, at Mass, bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus. Yet what we see, feel, smell, and taste are bread and wine. Should we believe what we hear, or what our natural senses are telling us to be true ?? … Our Catholic Church is simply asking us, and telling us, to see what God the Father is seeing at communion. God does not see bread and wine. God is seeing what happened about 2000 years ago when Jesus said “yes” to the cross and gave His Body and Blood so that our sins could be forgiven. … At communion (the Eucharist) God sees you, me, everyone else as imperfect sinners who do not deserve Heaven or His help. Yet He also sees Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins so that we can be forgiven. God does NOT see bread and wine. God sees Body and Blood. … At communion do you see what God sees? Do you see yourself as totally unworthy of Heaven? Or do you say “God knows I am not perfect, but, yet not bad enough for Hell?” IF you, or me, or St. Peter, or the Pope could possibly be “good enough” for Heaven there would have been no need for Jesus to die on the cross. … At communion we are being given the Body and Blood of Jesus. The same Body and Blood that became a sacrifice 2000 years ago. Do you believe that your only hope for Heaven is THE Body and Blood? Or do you assume you will be found “good enough” for Heaven? Stop thinking the good things you have done will get you to Heaven and start believing in the Body and Blood sacrificed at Calvary. … So are the Protestants correct to say we are “Saved by Faith Alone and NOT Good Works ?? ” No, God wants you to do good works. Yes! Jesus died so we could be forgiven ! AND Jesus died so we can have the help of God the Holy Spirit ! Once you see Jesus as your only hope for Heaven, Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to help you become more and more like the person God wants you to be. … You will not need a miracle or scientific proof to believe that bread and wine become Body and Blood. You will have the help of God the Holy Spirit to know it is true !!

  17. I want to understand how someone as intelligent as Bishop Barron believes wine and wafers are literally transforming into blood and flesh as they are consumed…I genuinely want to understand, and mean absolutely no condescension.

  19. 1. Was Mary freed from the stain of Original Sin?

    2. Did Christ receive a Body free of the stain of Original Sin from Mary?

    3. Is the Host then, besides being the Body of Christ, also the Body of Mary?

    4. Would not the Host then be the Body of Mary first, since Mary was conceived prior to Christ, and gave her flesh to Christ?

  22. It's semantics discussion to a degree. I understand the willing to give in to the irrational, that's the idea of religion, after all, but I think it's a waste of time to put blame to everyone in Catholic church for this "massive failure". Symbols are mind patterns, look at them from culture studies perspective. It is a symbol, and for you it's also Christ himself. Those are not posing a contradiction to one another. Why a symbol of Christ can't bear him? Is Eucharist in every other confession Christ himself, or are those just symbols? You may put it in many ways, and it's the priests who interpret it, it's your guys' job. Those interpretations differ from epoch to epoch, from translation to translation, from bishop to bishop. Was there no discussion between Catholics and protestants in Protestant early years? Doesn't faith transform? Won't a sudden revelation, a miracle, change faith? Dogma breaks contact with the irrational, in my opinion.
    Discussion welcome.

  23. Well, the poor Bishop is wrong, again. The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ, not Jesus. The Eucharist is not the 2,000-year-old body and blood of the historical Jesus. The real presence of Christ is also in the word when proclaimed as Mass. And that's from the Constitution of on the Sacred Liturgy. The Chuch has already stipulated that if the species were chemically analyzed it would not be human tissue.

  25. A story. I'm a cradle Catholic. I went to a Catholic school grades 1-8. Teen years took over in public high school and never went to church after 8th grade. Went into military service after high school for 8 years. Never went to church. Adulthood up until Sept last year was the first time I ever stepped foot in the church. So about 45 years. Never ever lost my faith in God. Over the years, I kept one ear to the wind and caught from time to time what was going on in the Catholic church. I did however lose my faith in the church. But after 45 years of being away, I decided to give it another go. I knew I had to do confession first (that was hard). 45 years' worth of sins. But after watching a few streaming masses from our local church I noticed something weird that I was not familiar with. People lined up for communion and were receiving it standing and in the hand. I had never heard of or seen this when I was young. So I didn't want to receive it this way and figured it was part of Covid regulations. Lent rolls around and I really wanted to be present in the church. So I went and did my confession and told the priest why I haven't been to mass. He told me that I could, and just make sure that I was the very last one in line. Made sense to me. So for 4 consecutive Sundays and Easter, I received communion on the tongue. I couldn't kneel as there were no rails (which was also odd to me). I was really starting to feel good about going to church. Then came Divine Mercy Sunday and I really wanted to receive communion on that day. I was the last one in line as always. The Msgr. presented the Eucharist to me. I opened my mouth. He said it again. We looked at each other weirdly and again I opened my mouth. He then shrugged his shoulders, put the eucharist back in the bowl, turned around, and went back up the altar to conclude mass. He left me standing there. He ignored me like I wasn't even there. I didn't know what to do. My hands still folded in prayer I kept looking around just not knowing what to do and everyone in the congregation staring at me. That man wrecked me that day. He utterly wrecked me. I walked all the way to the rear of the church where my seat was in a near-total breakdown of tears. I sat in my seat and cried my eyes out while the people filed their way out of the church. I haven't been back since. In my heart, I cannot receive communion any other way and feel it is wrong to do so. I want to go for Pentecost Sunday, but am so afraid.

  26. I one hundred percent believe the eucharist is the body and blood of Christ. It angers me that the Catholic church stopped offering the blood of Christ (and holly water) at mass, during covid pandemic. WHYYY?!!! Surely Jesus Christ is immune to Covid, if anything Jesus heals the sick! Can you please address this?

  27. Your Excellency, it is the Bishops. You have spread responsibility broadly and it evades accountability. It is the Bishops who have accommodated this political climate. It is the Bishops who have not held their priests accountable. It is the Bishops who have overworked the priests so they are not able to care for the flock. It is a dread thing to be a Bishop. We need to be led with humility and penance. I honestly wonder if you, or most Bishops, have observed the typical parish mass where a well intentioned lay woman in capri pants and a beach shirt distributes the body of Our Lord. We are more protestant than protestants. Wake up call… the Bishops have too long hit snooze. You profess the centrality of sacred beauty. Help us restore the beauty of holiness to our mass. I say this with respect and humility, your excellency: A general call to the troops while the Bishops are snoozing is not helpful.

  28. I figured out by the time I was 4 or 5 that church teachings were bullshit. The bible stories had to be fables, could not be true. Especially the belief that the Eucharist is actually the body, blood and soul of Christ. I thought that would make us all cannibals. That fact that Latin was spoken for so long, proved to me that the church wanted to maintain control and authority via a mystique. Neither Jesus not his disciples spoke Latin. None of the bible was written in Latin. Why was Latin the official language of the church? I remember mass in Latin and the priest had his back to the congregation. I liked the symbolism of him "leading us" to God, but not that it was in Latin. Then they dropped the Latin requirement for the liturgy, and the priest now preaches from up on a raised landing, no longer "leading" but talking down to the congregation – horrible optics. I never really believed and when I went to church with family in high school, the whole time I was imagining aliens watching their equivalent of National Geographic (Interplanetary Geographic?) and laughing at our silly superstitions and rituals. I have called myself an atheist for 45+ years, to my parents' consternation.

  29. It's interesting to try to understand, but my own opinion is the same as Clive Lewis's: "The command is 'Take, eat' not 'Take, understand.'" The bishop defined transubstantiation in terms that could equally be used for consubstantiation, though not for nonsubstantiation (denying the real presence). Whatever your belief, obey the command.

  32. If it was only a symbol I would not travel 56 miles every Sunday to go to mass and receive Holy Communion . Instead I would go 1mile to the Christian church and receive the bread and grape juice symbol and save a lot on gas.

  37. Eucharistic catechesis has been sadly neglected because people are afraid to stir up ridicule, even some otherwise committed Catholics. Heard it discussed today by religious people. Out of ten only two believed in real presence. All of the others took a Zwinglian line.

  38. The reason people dont believe in Jesus's presence in the Holy Eucharist is down to poor catachises. Bad Priests and even worse bad Bishops. And it still goes on today. Good priests are told " your to ridged, chill out a little" No we , the sheep , NEED proper instruction and encouragement. We need to hear ,as a constant reminder , that Jesus IS TRULY PRESENT in Holy Communion.

  39. 80% of Catholics don't believe the doctrine of transubstantiation, because nobody told them to believe it.
    It also means that a large percentage of people joining the ritual did not notice any difference from eating the bread. (From the actual presence, as you define it)

    So not only does the material of the bread and wine not change, it also apparently has no noticeable effect on the person.

  40. For anyone who takes our Lords body( Eucharist) in their hand, pay attention at the care your Priest takes when after all the prayers and consumes the Eucharist, how he takes care to get every little piece off the paton into the chalice, then using the sacred cloth to wipe his hands so that not one piece drops on the floor, ect.. yet some take our Lord in their hand and take no precautions at all! Have more reverence for Our Lord and kneel down in respect and then receive the body of Christ on your tongue as all the Saints did, so not to defile Jesus out of negligence.

  41. If the Catholics respected and believed the body of Christ is essential, and that we could not receive it if we were living in sin without confession, I blame the complicit clergy for giving the Eucharist to sinners who still insist on promoting sin without repentance. Furthermore, the closure of the Churches and no communion during the pandemic shows the parishioners that the Eucharist and the church are nonessentials. What could have been reachable moments lost many to other Christian religions that kept their doors open and gave communion because, to me as I was taught, those are essentials. Sadly the Church is and has lost many, and will continue to lose many more, not due to the Catechism teachers, but the complicit leaders of the Church who are not consistent with the teaching and have opened their doors to accepting sinful behavior without repentance.

  42. It is terrifying when nearly 70% of Catholics don't believe in transubstantiation, and half of not just that number but of all Catholic adults either believe the church teaches the Eucharist is merely a symbol or don't know what the church teaches. Perhaps most frightening is nearly 1 in 4 of all Catholic adults know the church teaches transubstantiation but still reject it.

    I know the study only covered the US but I suspect you'd find similarly stark results in the rest of the world, since almost all demographics performed poorly: those who go to church monthly and those who go less, men and women, Hispanics and Whites, those under 60 and those over 60, and both the least and most educated – no group saw 40% of its members believe in transubstantiation. The only good news is that those who go to mass weekly unsurprisingly saw a strong majority believe in transubstantiation, but even with that group nearly 40% still believe the eucharist are symbols.

    The church seems to be majority nominal.

  44. Vatican 2 put the Eucharist into our grubby hands. Into the hands of Eucharistic Ministers. They are unconsecrated hands. Vatican 2 took away the kneelers. Now we receive Jesus while standing. Vatican 2 debased the Eucharist. No wonder people view it as a symbol. Why did Vatican 2 invite several PROTESTANTS to give input into the changes in the Mass? Yes, hard to believe. POPE PAUL VI gave us the new Mass. Terrible.

  46. How to be saved and be right with God for eternal life!
    1- Admit you’re a sinner and have sinned.
    2- Believe onto Jesus Christ,in his blood on the cross as payment for sins.
    3- Confess onto God,ask Jesus Christ to save you from your sins.
    Scripture links below.
    1.Romans 2:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
    2.Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
    3.Romans 10:9, “That is thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
    Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
    Corinthians 15:1-4,
    1."Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
    2."By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”
    3."For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;”
    4."And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

  47. I've been researching the eucharist and something I haven't seen any of these videos comment on is the fact that Jesus repeated the gift of bread and wine that Melchizedek gave to Abraham. So obviously it symbolized something in the Old Testament and wasn't something Jesus invented.

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