Part 3 The Eucharist vs. Betrothal
How Wordplay Turns Into Control (From “The Rock and the Keys: A 10-Part Series on the Catholic Church”)
In the late 1930s, at the height of radio’s golden age, a comedy team named Abbott and Costello debuted a routine that would become one of the most famous in American entertainment history. It first gained national attention on The Kate Smith Hour in 1938 and was soon cemented into pop culture through countless stage, radio, and television performances. They called it, “Who’s on First?”
At first glance, the sketch is a simple misunderstanding about baseball players’ names. But under the surface, it’s a masterclass in linguistic wordplay, fueled by confusion, unspoken assumptions, and a shared vocabulary that doesn’t actually share meaning.
Here’s how it goes:
Costello plays the clueless ‘everyman’, trying to understand the lineup of a fictional baseball team. Abbott begins listing the players' names: “Who” is on first base, “What” is on second, and “I Don’t Know” is on third. (Yes, those are their actual names in the sketch.)
The genius is in how these common pronouns, normally used to ask questions, are now repurposed as proper nouns/names. When Costello asks, “Who’s on first?” Abbott responds, “Yes.” What follows is an escalating whirlwind of misunderstanding. Costello thinks he’s asking a question. Abbott thinks he’s answering one. But because the words are overloaded with multiple meanings, they talk endlessly past each other, both becoming increasingly frustrated.
The humor is universal because it taps into a shared human experience: the frustrating breakdown that occurs when two people are speaking the same language but not sharing the same meaning. Or worse, when they’re using the same words but one hears them literally and the other symbolically. It’s not just a comedy sketch... it’s a linguistic trap for anyone trying to conceal a subject.
In comedy, this confusion ends in laughter. In doctrine, it ends in division.
From Comedy to Canon Law: When Wordplay Stops Being Funny
Now imagine the same confusion, only instead of a baseball team, it’s about our salvation.
This is the landscape of the Catholic doctrine teaches during Mass, the bread and wine offered on the altar are “literally transformed” into the “body” (σῶμα, sōma) and blood (αἷμα, haima) of Jesus Christ, a change they refer to as ‘transubstantiation’.
To many Catholics, it’s the “highest mystery” of the faith. But that concept of “mystery” is used more as a “device” to silence their congregation about the matter. A way for ‘The Church’ to avoid explaining why that ‘event’ would even be of any practical value to our salvation.
They take it literally so we must to understand this confusion. If it is Jesus “physically in you”, would it only lasts through a regular digestive cycle? Our communion with God only last as long as our body takes to pass it? This seems absurd.
I have heard them say, “It’s Christ’s body, spirit, and soul in you...” but again, why would God need a physical mechanism when Jesus/God emphasized so much about the Holy Spirit? And if it is some supernatural connection for us, why was this not part of the followers of Jesus in the ‘Upper Room’ story’ in Acts 2 as they were “filled with the Holy Spirit”?
The hard truth is that God does not need a physical mechanism to transport Himself into us, the Catholic Church does. They want to create a false dependence on their magisterium.
To Christians, it’s a sacred metaphor about internalizing what Jesus was saying directly concerning our purpose and destiny in Him and through Him. Yet it’s been made into a semantic trap by the Catholic Church, a rhetorical system they have perfected over centuries that mirrors the “Who’s on First?” debate.
The argument has never been about what Jesus said. We all agree. We even agree that Jesus emphasized on “gnawing on His flesh (σάρκα, sarka)”... The conflict is not nor ever been about ‘what Jesus said’, it’s been ‘why He said it’, and what it’s supposed to mean to YOU personally. Not what you want it to mean, but more specifically, “What Jesus means to you!”
Even if the Catholic belief that this bread and wine is transubstantiated into human flesh and human blood, I have never heard a compelling reason why that “event” would or should matter other than a grossly simplistic and shallow understanding of what Jesus wants with each of us. If I am being harsh, it is because this issue is not about how I dress for church. The Catholic Church has raised the temperature saying this issue is about your eternal salvation. If they say this is about my salvation, and they are wrong, it is condemnable.
Why? because if they are truly leaders of the faith and can’t get this right, they are not leaders. If they are just using scripture to elevate their standing then they are immoral.
You can almost hear the Abbott and Costello routine echo through modern debates between Catholics and Christians over John 6:53.
John 6:53
Εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς·
Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ φάγητε τὴν σάρκα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πίητε αὐτοῦ τὸ αἷμα, οὐκ ἔχετε ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς.Eipen oun autois ho Iēsous: Amēn amēn legō hymin, ean mē phagēte tēn sarka tou huiou tou anthrōpou kai piēte autou to haima, ouk echete zōēn en heautois.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves.”
There are two very important words: σάρκα (sarka), (English: “flesh”) which is distinctly separate from “body” (σῶμα, sōma). It emphasizes the ‘meat’, the material, tangible nature of what is to be consumed. Yet Catholic priests and apologists often, if not always - say “body” and not “flesh”. Why?
If they claim to be literalists, why do they retreat from Jesus’ literal word? Why do they soften the visceral noun purposefully used by Jesus in John 6, “flesh,” as in the meat you eat, and replace it with the general more acceptable term “body”?
In Luke 22:19, Jesus reverts back to “body” (σῶμα, sōma), saying “This is my body” while holding the bread... showing Jesus recalling His words in John 6 but seemingly, purposefully deescalating His rhetoric to emphasize His illustration. Why illustration?
Because Jesus uses this word, ἀνάμνησιν (anamnēsis) after presenting the bread... But like “anamnēsis”, “zōē”, change the emphasis of the subjects Jesus talks about. (I will explain anamnēsis shortly).
The word that is all the emphasis in John 6 is ζωὴν (zōēn), meaning life, as in eternal, purposeful, meaningful spiritual life, and it is what everything hinges on.
Yet during the Last Supper (Luke 22:19), Jesus held up bread saying, “This is my body,” at that last dinner He had with His disciples. Jesus, throughout His ministry, consistently used symbolic language. He spoke in parables. He described Himself as a door, a vine, a shepherd, a rock. He was always pointing to greater realities, through metaphor, through story, through image.
So the question is this:
’Was Jesus, in that final moment, pointing to a profound symbolic truth, as He so often did? Or was He initiating a miraculous tradition that would require an ordained priesthood and institutional ritual until the end of time?’
That’s the narrative the Catholic Church wants us to believe. But like many of their dogmas, it’s not explicitly taught in scripture. It’s implied, even forced by them. And if you don’t agree with their interpretation, they line up a curated list of “Church Fathers” to silence dissent, borrowing from the credibility of others we are told to revere.
However, do they ever list a record of dissenters and their reasons, as the Gospels readily show people questioning Jesus? Or is it in The Church’s best interest to only record those voices that affirm what they’ve already chosen to believe?
Aristotelian Metaphysics and Transubstantiation
The Catholic Church insists on a hyper-literal interpretation, but only through a philosophical framework borrowed from Aristotelian metaphysics. The Church didn’t arrive at this doctrine through revelation. They reverse-engineered it through philosophy.
In Aristotle’s view, something can undergo an ‘accidental change’ without changing what it is.
For example: you can toast a piece of bread until it’s burnt and blackened, but it’s still bread. Its color, texture, and smell have changed - those are the accidents. But the essence, or substance, remains the same.
The very word transubstantiation comes from this Aristotelian framework:
Trans – to change or move from one thing to another
Substance – the essential nature of a thing
So, they claim, the substance has been changed, even though everything your senses tell you says otherwise.
The Catholic Church flips this Aristotelian concept. They claim that in the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine is changed, even though the accidents (appearance) remain the same. You still see, touch, and taste bread and wine, but you're told it's no longer what it appears to be. The transformation is invisible, discernible only through faith in the authority of the Church. Just like the old children’s fable The Emperor’s New Clothes.
The Catholic Church depends on your compliance, not your understanding, so much so that they do not even bother to explain why this transformation matters to you, instead telling you just that it does, and then calling it a “mystery.”
And this is where the Abbott-and-Costello Effect becomes deadly serious.
What Abbott and Costello played for laughs, the Church plays for authority.
With the Eucharist, just like Who’s on First?, the confusion arises from two people using the same words, “eat My flesh”, but assigning that phrase a radically different meaning.
Only now, instead of a punchline, the Catholic Church turns that semantic tension into a claim of authority.
The Catholic Church demands that only a Catholic priest, ordained within the institutional framework of the Roman Catholic Church, can perform the transformation. Only that priest can speak the words that turn bread into Jesus. Only he can make this moment valid. That’s what gives the tradition its so-called power.
And that is the core of the issue.
This is why the communion cup is so contentious. Catholics are right about one thing: it is transformed. But not by Jesus. By The Catholic Church. What should be a solemn reminder of Jesus - Who God Is to us - and His dedication to our lives, the Catholic Church has turned into a leash. A tether. A mechanism of control. A theological shock collar to sting whomever doesn’t submit to their structure of authority.
And if you disagree? You’re told you simply don’t understand the mystery and are therefore unworthy of salvation.
But mystery, in this context, doesn’t mean “divine truth beyond comprehension.”
It means “don’t ask questions, trust us.”
It’s not reverence for the unknown. It’s deferral to their institutional power.
Semantic Priestcraft
The Catholic Church has built a system where access to God is controlled by semantic priestcraft, the manipulation of words and their meanings.
Just like Abbott keeps insisting “Who is on first,” the Church insists “This is the body,” and if you don’t agree with their definition of “is,” and “that you are literally consuming Jesus’ body,” then the fault lies with you, with your “lack of understanding,” your “disregard for tradition,” your “departure from the Church Fathers.”
It is a construct to pressure your insecurities rather than appeal to your reason and understanding of your relationship with God.
The issue, they say, is never theirs.
But here’s the difference: Abbott and Costello were trying to make you laugh.
The Catholic Church is trying to make you submit.
The Half-Truth Machine
The Catholic Church has become masterful at offering half-truths, and then insisting that the accumulation of these half-truths somehow makes everything they say true.
But a large number of half-truths stacked together don’t lead to wholeness.
They instead lead to distortion.
And so much distortion leads to a loss of direction entirely, where one is totally dependent on the Catholic Church to guide them through the maze of their making.
This is what the Church routinely does.
They build a narrative that only sounds complete because it refers back to itself for the gaps that logic leave.
It’s a circular system:
“How do we know we’re right?”
“Because Church history says so.”“Who wrote the history?”
“The Catholic Church.”“Who gave you the Bible?”
“The Catholic Church.”
They ask doubters to prove their case using only the version of history ‘The Church’ curated, preserved, and edited.
The system doesn’t allow for correction, it deflects it.
And in that loop, dissent is not just discouraged.
It’s made impossible.
As a Christian you have scripture to find answers…only to hear from the Catholic Church that “Scripture Alone” is a heresy. That scripture requires the context of their centuries of distortions to truly understand.
Convenient.
The Eucharist
Let’s be clear: the Catholic Church has every motive to inflate and exaggerate its claims about Communion, which they call “The Eucharist.” Why?
Because if transubstantiation is true, if the bread and wine literally must become Jesus and we cannot be saved without it, then participation in the Eucharist becomes essential for salvation.
Or a more accurate way to explain it…
The Catholic Church becomes essential for salvation, since The Catholic Church claims that this transformation can only happen through a Catholic priest.
So, according to Rome, there is:
No Eucharist without the Church
No Salvation without the Eucharist
And therefore, no salvation without The Catholic Church
Let that settle.
They are not just claiming spiritual insight.
They are claiming cosmic jurisdiction over your soul.
That is not just misguided.
It is spiritually predatory.
It turns something beautiful, a tradition meant to point us to Jesus, into a tool of religious domination. It’s not mediation. It’s interference. It’s the Church inserting itself into the sacred bond between Christ and His bride.
It’s no different than a medieval lord claiming the right of prima nocta, a twisted assertion of power over the right to a bride’s body before her groom. And in this case, we are the bride.
The Catholic Church isn’t just asserting a role in your walk with God.
It’s asserting ownership of the path.
Missing the Point of the Cup
This is why Catholicism focuses so heavily on what Jesus said, and not why He said it.
They zero in on the words: “Eat my flesh, drink my blood,” but they rip them out of the context of Jesus’ ministry, especially the context of the day before He made this statement.
Let’s back up.
The previous day Jesus said those controversial words, He miraculously fed more than 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, with abundant food left over. The abundance left over was just as important as the bread itself because it represented God’s grace! He offered more than we could ever need “to eat”!
Jesus broke the bread, He gave thanks, and He distributed it. This wasn’t a throwaway miracle.
It was a setup for a later deeper point that Jesus would return to in that Last Supper.
He fed their bodies, not just as an act of kindness, but as a way to contrast two kinds of sustenance for ‘life’:
Bios – the physical life, sustained by food
Zōē – the eternal, purposeful, meaningful life, sustained by relationship with God
The next day, when the crowds followed Him across the sea, Jesus didn’t celebrate their devotion.
He called them out!
“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”
(John 6:26)
Jesus noticeably frustrated spoke to their physical filling, not to their spiritual filling.
They weren’t there for truth.
They were there for another meal.
They respond to Jesus’ rebuke of them, recorded in John 6:31–34, by trying to justify their demands that Jesus feed them again while adding what sounds like a way to obligate Jesus, saying:
“Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”
Jesus is cutting through their implication that like Moses did ‘signs’, Jesus must also ‘perform’ to prove He is ‘from God’, but they are specifically demanding more food. So Jesus replies:
“It is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but My Father... For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life (zōē) to the world.”
Jesus directly refers to Himself as this new ‘life bread’.
This is the turning point.
He transitions from talking about ‘food/mana’ that sustains life bios to ‘a new bread of life’, zōē (the life that gives you purpose).
He’s not talking about digestion and nutrition.
He’s talking about destiny.
He wasn’t setting up a doctrine of nutrition to be managed by a magisterium.
He was separating the crowds from those who wanted a free meal to those who wanted His words.
He pushed the metaphor harder, knowing that only those truly hungry for spiritual life would stay.
And most didn’t.
Jesus was intentionally drawing a line. He drove in hard:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life (zōē) in yourselves…”
(John 6:53)
His use of zōē is clearly talking about food beyond sustenance.
The crowd couldn’t handle it. Many left.
But Jesus didn’t chase after them to clarify.
Jesus raised the temperature, He added tension to divide this group. If you were there to hear Jesus, you most likely stayed. If you were there for a free meal. You most likely left… Jesus say people leave and did not both to explain His words…
He just let them go.
Because this was never about bread/wine/food. It wasn’t about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
It was about belief in His message and in Him.. It was about His dedication to us.
And it was never about literal consumption.
It was about covenant-level trust, the kind of trust that binds bride to groom, soul to Savior.
The chapter makes the shift explicit: Jesus moves from physical need (bios) to eternal purpose (zōē).
In John 6:33, He says:
“For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life (zōē) to the world.”
He’s not talking about calories or material samples.
He’s talking about Creation and the plan from Eden, calling, and communion with God.
The Purpose of His Words, and the Pain of Their Distortion
Zōē means to live in the fullest sense with Him… intimately connected to God, fueled by meaning, grounded in purpose.
Jesus used the imagery of His flesh and blood as “food” not as a doctrine to be enforced, but as a metaphor to sift hearts. He said the hard thing not to trick them, but to reveal who truly understood what He came to give.
Those who wanted another free meal realizing they weren’t going to get it walked away.
Those who wanted truth and words for real life stayed.
And here’s the irony:
Both Catholics and those they call “Protestants” agree Jesus knew He was going to die soon, and at no time did He make any attempt for His disciples to actually eat a part of Him or drink His blood or at any time say “this way I am in you physically” (which could have been done at the Last Supper).
Yet Catholics distort this holy moment - this life-changing message of Jesus where He explains that we were meant for more than to ‘just exist’… The Catholic Church mistranslate this so that they can point to another section of the Bible that gives them authority over your life (bios). Jesus didn’t say, “Consume Me so I can be in you physically.”
He could have made it unmistakably literal, but He didn’t.
And that silence is everything.
The Catholic Church twists this message to mean something that has no depth or value other than a material translation - to appeal to a simplistic idea of God’s objectives for us.
The Catholic Bait-and-Switch
The Catholic Church distorts this sacred moment.
They redirect Jesus’ beautiful teaching about zōē life into a system of bios control.
They lower the meaning from spiritual fulfillment to physical ritual.
And why?
Because in their version, they hold the keys.
They insist that the bread and wine only become sacred if blessed by a Catholic priest.
That only the Catholic Church has the power to invoke Jesus into those elements.
That if you’re not Catholic, the elements aren’t valid, and neither is your salvation.
It’s religious gatekeeping disguised as sacred tradition.
Canon Law and Communion: Control Written in Policy
Canon Law (1983 Code), Canon 844:
“Catholic ministers may not administer the sacraments to those who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
This moment is about communion with God and in their own words, they elevate communion with the Catholic Church over God.
That’s not theology.
That’s bureaucratic exclusion.
That’s the Church placing a barrier between you and Jesus, and demanding that you go through them to reach Him.
The Catholic Eucharist has become a kind of sleight of hand, an illusion designed to reinforce dependence.
The elements are manipulated - but not in substance, in meaning.
And every twist of that meaning pulls the believer not toward Christ but toward Rome.
They polish their language.
They wrap it in tradition.
They drape it in authority.
And then they say:
“We represent Jesus on earth.”
But they don’t represent Him.
They replace Him.
The Paul Problem: Misreading 1 Corinthians
Many Catholic apologists will pivot from John 6 to 1 Corinthians 11:27:
“So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”
Sounds damning to a Christians argument against transubstantiation, unless you actually read the context.
Starting in verse 23, Paul explains the moment:
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you:
The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread,
and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,
‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’”
Paul isn’t delivering a metaphysical formula.
He’s passing on a remembrance, a moment of relational covenant, not transformation and magic.
We come to this word from earlier “anamnēsis”
Jesus used the word ἀνάμνησιν (anamnēsis) - meaning memorial, recollection, commemoration.
It’s the same word Paul uses.
Symbolism Isn’t a Weakness, It’s the Point
Catholics often say, “The Bible doesn’t use the word ‘symbol.’”
As if the absence of that English term undermines the symbolic nature of what Jesus said.
But that argument betrays a surface-level understanding of language.
The Greek language used in The New Testament has fewer than 6,000 words.
English has over 600,000. How can you expect to find modern concepts from a language with 1% of your lexicon?
You won’t find every modern word, but what you do find, is that ἀνάμνησιν, carries unmistakable weight.
Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” not “Consume Me physically.”
“...in remembrance of me.”
Jesus said those same exact words as Paul recalls, recorded in Luke 22:14–20.
The Greek word for remembrance is ἀνάμνησιν (anamnēsis), meaning “a memorial,” “recollection,” or “commemoration.”
This was a covenantal meal, not a magical ritual.
The power wasn’t in the bread or wine itself, but in what the bread and wine pointed to.
The Catholic Church takes that metaphorical meal and claims it becomes literal,
but only under their control.
Only with their priest.
Only in their church.
Only by their blessing.
And then they hold that over your soul.
This is where their argument collapses:
If the presence of Jesus depends on their ritual, then it isn’t Jesus you’re relying on, it’s them.
This is the answer you are looking for:
What They Never Tell You About Matthew’s Account
In Matthew 26:26–29, Jesus makes this moment deeply intimate:
“While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said,
‘Take, eat; this is My body.’
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying,
‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine
from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.’”
Jesus isn't laying down a liturgical formula.
He's expressing devotion.
He says He will not drink again until He can drink it with us.
This is the language of a betrothed groom waiting for the wedding feast.
And if you know anything about Jewish betrothal traditions, the meaning becomes unmistakable.
Betrothal and the Covenant Cup
In ancient Jewish culture, betrothal was sealed not with a kiss, but a cup.
Here’s how it worked:
The groom and his father would meet with the bride’s family.
If the marriage was approved, a ketubah (marriage covenant) was read aloud.
Then, the groom would pour a cup of wine and offer it to the bride.
If she drank, she was accepting the proposal.
From that moment on, they were legally bound.
The groom would then return to his father’s house to prepare a place for her, a room added onto the family home.
Sound familiar?
“In My Father’s house are many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you… and I will come again and receive you to Myself…”
(John 14:2–3)
This is the language Jesus used just hours after the Last Supper. In anguish in fear and even in doubt, Jesus goes to God about this betrothal cup He is about to commit to.
It is the same betrothal cup in Matthew 26:39 where Jesus says:
“...he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’”
Our sip was and is the wine, His drink was the cross. Jesus says “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
Jesus directly ties the bread and wine to our betrothal to Him because the second drink is the wedding feast.
The Groom Offers. The Bride Responds.
At the Last Supper, Jesus holds up a cup and says:
“This is my blood of the covenant…”
It’s not just Passover imagery.
It’s marriage language.
He is the groom.
We are the bride.
And the cup... is our chance to say yes.
Not to Rome.
Not to priests.
Not to transubstantiation.
But to Him, Jesus.
Why the Catholic View Undermines the Romance
The Catholic Church says the bread is Jesus. The wine is His blood.
And that only they can make it so.
But the real meaning is not in the matter… it’s in the message.
It is in the covenant moment when we drink that wine.
We are saying Yes to Jesus as our groom.
This isn’t a transformation of elements.
It’s a transformation of hearts.
Jesus wasn’t handing out His literal flesh and blood.
He was offering covenant. He was proposing.
And when we take communion, we aren’t feeding on Him physically - we are accepting that covenant, drinking from the betrothal cup, saying:
“Yes, Lord. I am Yours. I will wait. I believe You will return.”
That’s the Power of Communion.
That’s the love story Rome replaced with legalism.
That’s the truth they can’t afford to let you see.
Because if you realize that the cup was always a symbol, not of their power, but of His promise, they lose their control.
The bread and the wine is done to remind us that He is dedicated to us,
and His drink from that betrothal cup was the cross.
When you understand that depth of Love from Him, then...
...you’re free to Live in Christ as He wants to Live in you.