Catholic Answers Live – Episode #12477

Is the Eucharist a Literal Sacrifice or Just Symbolic? Body, Blood, and Sacrifice (ENCORE)
Host: Cy Kellett (A)
Guest: Joe Heschmeyer (B), author of The Eucharist is Really Jesus
Date: November 27, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Joe Heschmeyer takes on every major objection to the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Focusing especially on common Protestant objections that the Eucharist is "just symbolic," the conversation delves into scriptural interpretations of Jesus’ words, the historical and theological background of Eucharistic belief, and the intricacies of biblical metaphors. With detailed exegesis—particularly of John 6—and a step-by-step dismantling of symbolic-only interpretations, Heschmeyer shows how the Catholic view of real presence, sacrifice, and communion is rooted in both the Bible and ancient Jewish tradition.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Opening and Framing the Debate

• Purpose: Address every objection to the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, with a primary focus on Protestant objections.
• Tone: Informal, collaborative, drawing on traditional Catholic apologetics as well as modern media techniques.

2. The "Just Symbolic" Objection

Timestamp: 03:00–07:40

• Protestant View Presented: "When Jesus talks about eating his body and drinking his blood, he’s clearly speaking metaphorically, just as when He says, 'I am the vine' or 'I am the door.'"
• Joe’s Response:
  • Not all metaphors are the same, and Jesus does not always speak metaphorically. Sometimes He is literal.
  • Key Quote:
    • "The fact that sometimes Jesus speaks metaphorically is no reason to believe that he always speaks metaphorically. Sometimes Jesus speaks literally. That doesn't mean he always speaks literally." (B, 03:39)
  • Importance of context: biblical interpretation requires understanding authorial intent, literary forms, and reaction of Jesus’ audience.

3. Scriptural Analysis: John 6 as Case Study

Timestamp: 08:00–13:11

• Method: Examine carefully how Jesus presents His teaching on the "Bread of Life", how His listeners understood Him, and whether Jesus corrected or confirmed their understanding.
• Key Observations:
  • Whenever misunderstanding is possible elsewhere (e.g., John 3, Nicodemus and "born again"), Jesus clarifies.
  • In John 6, Jesus leads the crowd step-by-step to a more literal (not less) understanding—He never pulls back, only intensifies.
  • Quote:
    • "If you take a non-sacramental read of John 6, Jesus seems to be steering in exactly the wrong direction because he's leading them deeper and deeper into that understanding of his teaching.” (B, 13:11)

4. The Progression of the Bread Discourse

Timestamp: 13:53–17:04

• Jesus doubles down: shifts from "eat" to the stronger Greek term "to gnaw"; adds shocking imagery (drinking blood).
• Jewish law strictly prohibits drinking blood for animals; therefore, this metaphor would make little sense to Jews unless something extraordinary is intended.
  • Exchange on Jewish context:
    • Quote:
      • "To drink the blood of an animal would be to enter into communion with it in a way that was unseemly...if you understand why it was forbidden, then you can see why the very reasons you wouldn't drink the blood of an animal would be the reasons you would want to drink the blood of God. Because you'd want to enter into communion with God." (B, 15:45–16:42)

5. Addressing “The Flesh is of No Avail” (John 6:63)

Timestamp: 19:06–23:10

• Objection: Protestant opponents cite John 6:63 ("the flesh is of no avail; the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life") to argue Jesus meant everything figuratively.
• Joe’s Exegesis:
  • “Flesh” here refers not to Jesus’s physical body, but to unaided human understanding.
  • Cites Gnosticism: Denying bodily value is anti-Incarnational (Antichrist).
  • Quote:
    • “To say, ‘Oh, yeah, what Jesus did on the cross, because it was his body, it didn’t do anything…That’s Gnosticism. That’s not Christianity.’” (B, 21:09)
  • The Holy Spirit enables correct apprehension of the Eucharist, going beyond mere human logic.

6. Tracking the Conversation in John 6

Timestamp: 29:35–36:12

• Joe counts at least eight times Jesus explicitly reemphasizes the need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, in increasingly literal/sacramental terms.
• Question from Cy: If taken literally, how can Jesus give us his flesh?
  • Answer: Jesus later resolves the "how" at the Last Supper—He gives Himself under the forms of bread and wine, now understood through the lenses of the Passover and manna traditions.
  • Sacrifice connection: As at Passover, mere death of the lamb wasn’t enough; participation required eating its flesh (see 1 Cor 10).
  • Quote:
    • "With a sacrifice, it’s not enough that an animal dies…How does this become incorporated to my life? And the answer is by eating the flesh." (B, 33:09)

7. "Do This in Remembrance of Me"—Memorial or Sacrifice?

Timestamp: 37:45–40:10

• Objection: Jesus’s words at the Last Supper (“Do this in remembrance of me”) just refer to symbolic memorial.
• Joe’s Response:
  • Greek term “anamnesis” is specifically sacrificial, translating the Hebrew "askara", used for “memorial sacrifice".
    • Cites Leviticus 24:7 and Hebrews 10:3-4.
    • Jewish remembrance is not mere recollection but “making present.”
  • Quote:
    • "In the Jewish framework this is going to sound much more like a memorial sacrifice...it’s a much more technical kind of term." (B, 39:30)

8. “Once For All” Sacrifice—Why Not Repeated?

Timestamp: 40:10–45:50

• Objection: Hebrews says Christ’s sacrifice is "once for all"—how can the Mass be a sacrifice?
• Joe’s Explanation:
  • Sacrifice in Jewish context had three phases: offertory, killing, and consumption (eating the offering).
  • Christ’s death is not repeated; the Mass is the ongoing participation in His one sacrifice by consuming the offering ("eating the lamb" as per Passover).
  • Christ’s heavenly offering (Hebrews 9:11–12) occurs at Ascension, not Good Friday.
  • Quote:
    • "We are receiving him by eating his body and blood to participate in the death that has already happened... When you sit down and eat the first time, you're completing the sacrifice." (B, 42:36)

9. The Charge of Cannibalism

Timestamp: 48:35–52:48

• Objection: The Catholic Eucharist teaching is tantamount to cannibalism.
• Joe’s Response:
  • Cannibalism is destructive: tearing apart a body and metabolizing it. The Eucharist is not destructive, but supernatural participation in Christ’s risen body.
  • Early Christians were accused of cannibalism, showing how shocking and literal their language was.
  • In the Eucharist, the “eating” is real, but it's Christ who transforms us—not the other way around.
  • Quote:
    • "When we eat the bread and wine that have become the body and blood of Christ, we don't metabolize him into us; we are metabolized into him." (B, 50:38)
  • Use of metaphors in Scripture and early Christianity (e.g., manger = food trough, Bethlehem = "house of bread") suggest real, intended connections.

10. Summing Up & Looking Forward

Timestamp: 54:20–end

• Recap: The Catholic view is that Jesus gives us His real flesh and blood as food and drink as our participation in His once-for-all sacrifice; we receive this in the Eucharist, not by re-killing, but by sacrificing and consuming in ongoing memorial.
• Transition: Having addressed the symbolic language objections fully in this hour, the next hour promises to cover further objections, as the symbolic/sacramental divide makes up the core.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joe Heschmeyer, on metaphor:
  “Sometimes Jesus speaks metaphorically. So how do we know he's not speaking metaphorically here?... The fact that sometimes Jesus speaks metaphorically is no reason to believe that he always speaks metaphorically.” (03:39)

• Joe Heschmeyer, on John 6:
  “Jesus slowly, carefully, methodically, kind of leads them into… this is a figure of speech because it's not literally bread, it's literally my flesh.” (12:03)

• Cy Kellett, on Jewish tradition:
  “So my neighbor down the block, they owned a lamb and they brought that lamb and had it killed. I didn't own the lamb. I didn't kill the lamb. I've done nothing so far. How does this become incorporated to my life? And the answer is by eating the flesh.” (33:09)

• Joe Heschmeyer, on accusations of cannibalism:
  “If your eucharistic views couldn't be misunderstood as cannibalism, they're not the eucharistic views of the early Christians.” (52:48)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:00 – Symbolic vs. literal language of Jesus
• 08:00 – Contextual analysis of John 6
• 13:53 – Jesus "doubles down" on realism: gnawing, drinking blood
• 19:06 – The meaning of "the flesh is of no avail"
• 29:35 – Parsing Jesus's responses & the escalation in John 6
• 33:09 – Passover context; eating as participation in sacrifice
• 37:45 – "Remembrance" as memorial sacrifice (anamnesis)
• 40:10 – “Once for all” (Hebrews) and the three stages of sacrifice
• 48:49 – Cannibalism: Why the Eucharist doesn't qualify
• 52:19 – Early accusations of cannibalism and their roots in eucharistic language
• 54:20 – Recap and preview of further objections in next hour

Overall Tone & Style

The discussion is rich, scripturally dense, and approachable, balancing scholarship with accessibility. Both host and guest use humor and vivid analogies (e.g., “is Jesus a literal door, hinges and all?”) while never shying from deep theology, respecting both Catholic listeners and Protestant objectors.

This summary covers the first hour of the podcast, focusing mainly on the “symbolic vs. sacramental” objections to the Eucharist, with scriptural, historical, and linguistic evidence marshaled in defense of the Catholic doctrine.