Literal or symbolic? Partaking of the flesh and blood

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Exactly. When it comes to the Eucharist, we must be like children and believe even though our senses tell us otherwise.
 
cody.helscel said:
One Protestant told me different people believe it is symbolic to partake in Christ’s flesh and blood. I understand Catholics teach that it’s literal because Christ (aka God) said, “this IS my flesh…”.

My Protestant friend then asked, “so Catholics pick and choose what Jesus taught literally”.

How can we know the flesh and blood is literal compared to perhaps other symbolic verses?
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Five different authors of the NT testify that it IS; FOUR of them with their very LIFE
READ John 6: 47-58 & 60:63 AND Paul 1st Cor. 11:23-30

Both are easy to comprehend; BOTH are LITERAL.

We CATHOLICS can choose what is Literal because the bible is a Catholic birthed book, and we have the Holy Spirit guided Magisterium to GUIDE us unerringly:

READ John 17:17-20
In it Jesus gives HIMSELF as the Personal impossible to ERROR warranty of His RCC being able to teach in error on ALL Faith and Moral issues. NO other church or faith can make and evidence THAT claim.

The Have your friend GOOGLE “Eucharistic Miracles” … it’s easy for them to deny it for several reasons:

It takes FAITH
To believe it means that THEY would HAVE to become Catholics {or DENY GOD}
Its easier all-around not to believe it

Blessings,
Patrick
 
benjamin1973 said:
Your words confound me. And in my experience, confounding language is not usually employed in order to clarify a simple truth.

As for symbolism-- I would say that if there’s a very real miracle, the description of it could be symbolic. I know what flesh is. It cannot be other than it is, because it is that by definition. Flesh is a collection of cells, with human DNA, in certain structures. It has a particular chemical composition and physical layout. Any material which does no have all those characteristics is not flesh, by definition.

“Bread” is defined by observable properties-- composition, form, chemical structures, etc. Either something matches the characteristics of bread, or it does not.

Bread, after consumption, as Eucharist or otherwise, quite obviously keeps all the characteristics of bread, and not of flesh. Therefore, if you want to call it a “literal” transformation, you are abusing the definition of that word.
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It is not symbolic. It is really the Lord, not just spiritually but physically.
“I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
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.” John 6:48-56
If he only meant this symbolically, why were his listeners quarreling about what he meant and why did he not correct them for interpreting what he said in a literal way?

It takes faith to believe this. No one disputes that. All we dispute is that there is an interpretation that reduces this to a symbolic matter that makes any sense.
 
If it takes faith to believe, then it’s not literal flesh. I can see flesh, taste it, and run tests on it. So if there is anything in reality which I can’t do that to, it’s not literal flesh.

Now, if you want to say that something special happens to the bread, and that it now provides spiritual food where normal bread doesn’t, then okay.

But “living bread that come down from heaven” is not talking about normal bread. You can eat as many crackers as you want, but I don’t think that can reasonably be believed to be “living bread that come down from heaven.”
 
benjamin1973 said:
If it takes faith to believe, then it’s not literal flesh.
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Sure you’d be correct, if it were my flesh or your flesh that was being discussed, but we are talking about the flesh of the Incarnate and Risen Son of God.
Wouldn’t you say it takes faith to believe that a guy born a poor nobody is literally God?
How is it possible that someone who could be arrested and killed could also be the Infinite God?
What physician put limits on the anatomy and physiology of the Body of the Risen Son of God?
You know the limits on what you can test.
You don’t know the limits on God, because you cannot put God to the test.
After all, if millions of people are talking at the same time, how can one God literally hear them all?
(Do you think God only hears prayers symbolically?)
 
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You are attacking what you don’t know but that’s ok. Here you are, most skeptical about our belief, it’s like blasphemy, yet you get replies to explain your ridiculously irrelevant argument. I am glad for that because there are thousands or millions like you out there who will get replies and explanations here. Go on.
 
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Thank you. That is my intent. I will speak as plainly as possible, because there are a few sticking points that prevented me from adopting the Catholic faith as a young man.

Indeed, around 19 or 20 or so I read the Bible about 4-5 hours each day, fasted, and prayed in sincere faith.
However, some disillusionment with the Catholic institution (I mean the clergy etc.) and some serious doubts about a few points of dogma, drew me away from that path.
 
I think I should have known that would be taken with offense, and I apologize. It does sound snarky to me now.

That being said, while the tone looks off in retrospect, the basic idea remains the same, because I think there’s some inconsistency about what constitutes “bread,” or what “literal” means.

It seems to me that Jesus wasn’t talking about the bread at the table-- he was talking about a better kind of bread, which is the bread of the spirit, and which he brought down to earth as the embodiment of God on Earth. But I really don’t think he was saying the normal bread on the table miraculously turned INTO him upon eating it.
 
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PetraG said:
Sure you’d be correct, if it were my flesh or your flesh that was being discussed, but we are talking about the flesh of the Incarnate and Risen Son of God.on
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Whose blood was so special it only had Mary’s contribution (plus the Holy Spirit)! What kind of powers does that blood have???
 
petra22 said:
Whose blood was so special it only had Mary’s contribution (plus the Holy Spirit)! What kind of powers does that blood have???
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Exactly. Who else but He could say,
“This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.” John 10:18

This is not an ordinary person.
 
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In line with what @petra22 and @PetraG are saying, even though Christ is still fully human, He is fully God and has shown us a different kind of body. He was seen by his disciples in a glorified state at the Transfiguration. After His Resurrection He could walk through walls and yet eat food. It is reasonable to think the Lord was talking literally and yet beyond what we understand by flesh. The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1-10, tells us we will still be human but have a different kind of body in heaven (NLT, BibleGateway):
5 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.[a] 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
6 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing. 8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. 10 For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.
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Also as a previous poster mentioned, I can’t see why there should be any difference in the Eucharist once it is consumed compared to beforehand. The priest tells us at the altar before we partake to behold the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not expecting it to change into muscle cells with DNA as it goes down our throats.
 
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womanatwell said:
In line with what @petra22 and @PetraG are saying, even though Christ is still fully human, He is fully God and has shown us a different kind of body. He was seen by his disciples in a glorified state at the Transfiguration. After His Resurrection He could walk through walls and yet eat food. It is reasonable to think the Lord was talking literally and yet beyond what we understand by flesh. The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1-10, tells us we will still be human but have a different kind of body in heaven (NLT, BibleGateway):
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The thing that has confused me and still does is how Jesus ate His body at the Last Supper, it being the First Eucharist, yet He hadn’t died yet; wasn’t glorified yet.
 
Hi @Hope1960,
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 621, says:
621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22
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For one, not everyone believes that Jesus consumed the bread and wine.

Apparently Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich believed He did not consume the bread and wine, based on visions of God (which we are not obligated to believe but make sense).

Jesus can transcend time and produce miracles.
 
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womanatwell said:
Hi @Hope1960,
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 621, says:
621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19).
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I’ve read this before but I don’t know if Conte is correct or not. For one thing, as you pointed out, his opinion differs from Aquinas. Secondly, I couldn’t find much (anything?) online from reputable sources who agree with him. Also, didn’t he used to post here? How do we know he truly is a theologian?
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Yes, I edited my entry quite a bit before I even saw your answer from relying on Conte to what I think we can logically deduce. Please see it above your quote.
 
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