Eucharistic Heart of Jesus 

When Jesus said, “Whoever eats  my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him"...many turned away and said, “This teaching is too hard. Who can accept it?’. (JN 6: 54-57, 60, 66)

I think those who rejected Jesus understood the literal sense of Jesus’ teaching but without the faith required to appreciate it in an unbloody, sacramental sense. Similarly, the early Church was so good at teaching the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that they were accused of cannibalism. Later, Saint Thomas Aquinas gave us a way to use philosophical categories like 'substance' and 'accidents' to comprehend the miracle of 'transubstantiation'. To this day much confusion or perhaps lack of faith regarding the Eucharist remains even among many Catholics.

Is every human being innately wired to enter the mystery of the Eucharist?  Is our hunger and thirst for God in the Eucharist universal? Is the confusion and lack of faith justified given that many people already have the concept of the Eucharist in their cultures?

The Concept of the Eucharist found in Pre-Christian Paganism

There are many fascinating parallels and coincidental crossover between pre-Christian and pagan folklore and mythology and the Catholic theology of the Eucharist. Below are some examples taken from three different parts of the world, Scandinavia, Asia and North America. I find the universality of the pre-Christian, pagan concept of eating hearts and drinking blood to gain some kind of transformation into a higher being to be interesting. 

Let me be clear that I am not saying that the Church borrowed from these traditions in order to develop the theology of the Eucharist. On the contrary, the reason it's fascinating is because the concepts are independent and coincidental. 

Every culture everywhere sees the symbol of the heart as something that represents deep meaning: human love, the human soul or the essence of a person. Similarly, human blood or blood in general represents danger, death, life, the soul and family or covenant bonds. So what does it mean for them , the pagans, to eat heart and drink blood?

Old Norse Mythology: The Eating of Hearts as a Means of Personal Transformation

Norse mythology predates Christianity. It involves oral stories about a pantheon of gods, giants, and other supernatural beings. Many of the stories were written after the 8th to 12th century conversion of Scandinavia from Viking paganism to Catholicism and later Lutheranism. 

The concept of eating the heart and drinking the blood of a person or creature as a means of personal transformation stands out in three particular Icelandic mythological tales…

• The Short Voluspa (written in the 12th Century Iceland): Loki, a complex monster figure associated with both creation and destruction finds a half-cooked woman’s heart laying in the embers of a fire. After eating it he becomes magically impregnated as the father of offspring who multiply as monsters. 
• The Ballad of Fáfnir (written in the 13th Century Iceland): Once Fafnir, a worm-like dragon dies and the dwarf Reginn arrives, Reginn cuts out the heart and drinks some of the dragon’s blood. When Fafnir’s heart’s-blood came on his tongue, he understood the speech of birds.
• The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (written in the 14th Century Iceland): After the bear-like hero Böðvarr slays a dragon he orders Hott to take a bite of the heart and to drink its blood. As a result,  Hott transforms from a weakling into a courageous warrior.

“Each of these three events involves the cooking of a heart of a troll. Upon eating the heart, a magical transformation takes place in each individual who ate it. The type of transformation in each is different but the parallels are clear. Additionally, each transformation bestows troll-like properties onto the individuals. These three stories also give us a ground for examining how hearts were regarded in the Old Norse worldview. In addition to being a fleshy hjarta, the heart is also equated to hugr - the soul, the thoughts, the self. In Hyndluljóð, the heart is described as a stone made out of hugr. This clearly illustrates that the heart symbolizes the self and is perhaps where the self resides. The medieval concept of the soul held that the vital spirit, that spark which gives us life, resides within the left ventricle of the heart. In Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon belief, the soul was housed within the chest cavity. It’s therefore feasible to conclude that the heart, which is inside the chest, was believed to contain the hugr, explaining the name hugstein. If we accept this idea as truth, then by eating a heart you’re eating the soul of a person.”1

The Plains Indians: Eating the Bison Heart as a Source of Life and Energy

There’s a scene in Dances With Wolves where the lead hunter cuts the heart from a freshly killed bison, takes a huge bite, and offers the rest to Kevin Costner. He takes it and nibbles a small piece off the edge.The natives grunt and encourage him to take a big bite. As he does, they all yelp and cheer. 

Is there a religious significance? It is done out of respect for nature and the idea, similar to the biblical meaning of blood held by the ancient Hebrews, that blood is the life force or soul and in eating hearts or drinking blood energy flows from one living creature to another. Many plains tribes revered the bison as a sacred animal. To consume its heart was a way to symbolically gain strength and resilience, as well as to guarantee a providential abundance of provisions.

Korean Mythology: Eating the Heart and the Quest to Becoming a Higher Being

In Korean mythology, the Kumiho is a creature, often depicted as a fox with nine tails, known for eating the hearts of humans in its quest to become a higher being. 

In the folk tale, The Fox Sister. A man had three sons but desired to have a daughter. When the daughter was born he rejoiced. As she  became a child he noticed that his cows were being attacked and fed on during the night. One by one the sons were sent to investigate. Each reported to the father that their sister transformed into a type of fox or kumihu who ate the cows’ liver and heart. Later her brothers tried to kill her to stop her from eating them. She used her supernatural fox powers to thwart their attacks but eventually she was burned alive. 2

In the popular anime series, Naruto. the nine-tailed fox is known as Kurama was inspired by Japanese folklore. Unlike Kumiho, the character has a conversion from hating humans to becoming an ally. 

Catholics: Eating Christ’s Body and Blood as a Means of Deification

In the Eastern Orthodox branches of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist plays a crucial role in theosis, the process of becoming more like God. The doctrine of theosis is a process or series of steps through which one passes to arrive at divinization. Each time we partake in the divine nature of Christ we gradually acquire divine qualities. Christ's body and blood enter the believer, initiating a transformative process by which we become more Christ-like. Essentially, we become what we eat.

Theosis as a process of spiritual transformation centered on the reception of Communion seems to be more emphasized and more central to Eastern theology. In the West, we Roman Catholics would call it sanctification. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit within us through grace by which we become holy. This happens through all of the sacraments and through our openness to carry the cross as disciples of Christ.  The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic Faith and we believe in the Real Presence. We are consuming the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

Eating the Sacred Heart: Examples of Eucharistic Miracles with Human Heart Tissue:

There have been many Church approved eucharistic miracles fom bleeding Hosts to the image of Jesus being present, to levitation of the Host, to actual human heart tissue being discovered. For the theme of this article and for the Month of the Sacred Heart, I would like to point to three that were proven by scientists to be human heart tissue...

• Lanciano Italy (750): A traditional Eucharistic miracle where a monk's consecrated host reportedly transformed into flesh and blood. The flesh is said to be myocardial tissue and the blood, clotted. 
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (1996): A consecrated Host that fell to the ground and was later tested revealed heart tissue from the left ventricle of a person experiencing intense pain and suffering. The tissue also showed signs of being alive, such as intact white blood cells, despite the circumstances. 
• Sokolka Poland (2008): A consecrated Host that fell to the ground and was placed in water to dissolve was found to have a red "clot" remaining. Independent studies concluded this "clot" was heart muscle tissue with lesions and spasms, similar to those found in a living person nearing death. 

Next time when we hear those words, 'Body of Christ" as we say 'Amen' we would do well to remember those eucharsitic miracles.

The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity (100% of the Risen Lord) but through these specific ‘Heart’ miracles God wants us to know that by receiving Communion at Mass we are eating the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In doing so we are being transformed on a personal level, we are taking his life into our own. We are undergoing theosis. We are becoming sanctified as a 'higher being' or as Saint Augustine said, "If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive".  

Before the Lord's heart was pierced, it was crushed like an olive by the weight of the world’s sins. In the garden of Gethsemane, under the mental stress, blood was squeezed out of his sweat glands. Thus began an unending torrent of the Precious Blood shed throughout his passion. As a fount of mercy, it still flows into the hearts of the faithful and has proven to be more powerful than the sins of the whole world.