In the last article about Bread and Wine we looked at Jesus’ words in John 6.  He declared that He was the Bread come down from heaven, and all who eat of His flesh will never die.  We considered what it must have been like to be a first century Jew hearing a famous Rabbi saying these words.  ​

In the eyes of all the disciples it went downhill from there!  

One of the things that stands out as one reads the writings of the Early Church Fathers from Ignatius of Antioch (@100 A.D.) onward is how universal is the idea of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar; what Ignatius and later fathers all called the Holy Eucharist.  Ignatius, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, and was the Bishop of the Church of Antioch (where both Paul and Peter taught) declares that the Holy Eucharist is the “Medicine of Immortality.”  He says that he no longer desires the “dainties” of this world, but for bread he longs for the flesh of Christ and for drink he longs for the blood of Christ “an immortal love feast indeed!”  The Real Presence means that the bread and the wine truly become the body and blood of Christ by the end of the prayer over the elements and that they are the very life of God, eternal life, as God’s people eat and drink.