The Bread And Wine Do Not Change

Why need the bread of remembrance be flesh
Or wine blood, when at His table we dine?
Is man made fitter Christ's flesh to ingest,
Instead of human-mase bread, undivine?
Need God's children engage in such mystique
To enlarge the power of the holy rite;
Or must men devise this ritual unique,
To assure the members their sins' requite?
Jesus cares not rogue miracles inure,
Nor what the elements His flock partake,
So long as their minds His passion conjure,
And believers their sins all contemplate!
He made it forever miracle-free,
When He said, "Do this in remembrance of Me."

Jesus used his upcoming sacrifice on the cross to use the analogy of His flesh and blood being eaten by humans in order to be saved. It was a gruesome symbol, and it caused some of His disciples to abandon Him (which He likely intended, since they were following Him for the wrong reasons). On the evening before His crucifiction, at the Last Supper with His apostles, He instituted a memorial sacrament. He served a piece of bread and a cup of wine to each. He said once again, "This bread is my body, broken for you. Eat it in remembrance of me." And again, "This is my blood, shed for you. Drink it in remembrance of me."

Christians began the custom of observing "The Lord's Supper" as most call it periodically. Most Protestant churches instruct their members that it is a symbolic remembrance---that each believer use his mental faculties to envision Jesus's pain on the cross, and to thoroughly review his actions to make sure they are free of sin; if not, they are to confess them and ask forgiveness.

At some point in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, it adopted the theology of transubstantiation---that at the point in the ceremony where the presiding priest blesses the bread and wine, the elements are transformed instantly into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus; that by ingesting the bread, the worshipper becomes clean and pure, free from sin. Called the "Eucharist". or Mass, this is the principal worship service of Catholics, conducted each Sunday. I believe that Jesus clarified the point that the sacrament is symbolic only when He said it was to be done in remembrance of Him. The Catholics are taught, however, that Jesus is present in every church offering Mass every Sunday.


When He said, "Do this in remembrance of Me."