BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
Jesus uses figurative language regarding "eating", "drinking", "hunger", "thirst", and "food" repeatedly in John's gospel. It is a recurring theme. In John 4, he is talking to the woman at the well and says, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
And later he says to the disciples: "I have food to eat that you do not know about." The disciples took him literally, wondering who had brought him literal food. So he had to clarify: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."
Quoted below is a Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture referring to John 4:34 which comes well before John 6:
Quote:
The disciples expected Jesus to eat. He had been hungry as well as thirsty but had undergone the well-known psychological experience of hunger vanishing before a deeper desire, that of converting a soul. This is the satisfying food that his disciples did not know. They thought that he had received something to eat. He explained that the doing of his Father's will and the accomplishment of his Father's work was the supreme satisfaction of all his desiresit was 'his food'. (CCHS, 988)
This quote is from Catholic apologist, speaker, and author, Jim Blackburn is direct response to your post:
Quote:
Note that Jesus is talking about "food" for himself here, not the food "the Son of man will give to you" (John 6:27). Of course, we could say that doing the will of the Father and accomplishing his work is (or should be) "food" for all Christians, but saying so does not in any way diminish the reality or importance of the Eucharist that Jesus reveals in John 6.
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
Jesus does the same in John 6 about him being the bread of life, and in John 7 when he calls for those who "thirst" to come to him.
So in order to honestly reflect on John 6, these have to be kept in mind. Now, look carefully at two verses in particular in John 6:
verse 40 - "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
verse 54 - "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day"
Notice he says the same thing about BELIEVING in him, and "feeding on his flesh" - how they both lead to being raised up to eternal life. Which is it? Could it be that they both mean the same thing, i.e. faith? Wouldn't this be consistent with what Jesus said earlier in chapter 5: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life." He said nothing about literally eating his flesh there. He doesn't say it to Nicodemus in John 3:16 either. Neither do any of the apostles when they explain how to get eternal life (to the Ethiopian eunuch, the Phillipine jailer, the house of Cornelius, etc.) None were told about literally eating Jesus' flesh.
We Catholics believe in a Both/And philosophy. As mentioned earlier, the Eucharist is required for those who understand this. We are never told that Nicodemus, the Ethiopian eunuch, the Philippian jailer, nor the house of Cornelius did not eat the Eucharist. That wasn't the point of those passages. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in John 6 and the Last Supper that He means it literally.
Here are two tracks from Catholic Answers that "flesh out" (pardon the pun) the believe and the Eucharist and those in the early Church fathers that wrote about it. Their writings are never rebuked or challenged. Many of them wrote BEFORE the NT was canonized. Their believes were never condemned in the Councils. The believe in the Real Presence is AFFIRMED in the Councils.
Christ in the EucharistWhat the Early Church Believed: The Real PresencePlease explain how the Church has existed since Pentecost with this belief and was never struck down. It only took one day for the Hebrews to worship the Golden Calf before God allow the Levites to kill 3000 (an event which is typologically mirrored in Pentecost.)
Please find the source for me the first time that John 6 was supposed to be a symbol and then please explain why it took nearly 1500 years before that belief arose.
Quite frankly, I'll stand with Jesus, the apostles, His Church, the Church fathers, and magisterium before I trust the beliefs a man 1500 years removed from the actual source.
I understand that this is VERY difficult for you to accept. Jesus knows this. He lost hundreds , if not thousands of disciples after his Bread of Life Discourse. He let them go because they were not ready to hear these hard sayings.
Finally, the Church has seen several Eucharistic miracles of the accidents of the bread and / or wine changing into actual flesh and blood. When tested, the flesh is from the heart and the blood type is AB negative (which matches the blood type on the Shroud of Turin.
The Amazing Science of Recent Eucharistic Miracles: A Message from Heaven? The Real Presence of Christ in the EucharistI do pray for you daily to come to accept the beautiful truth of the Eucharist.