He is saying that we must believe what He is saying (His WORDS). It certainly is not that we literally eat His flesh. I know that your church teaches that this peice of bread actually
becomes Jesus. Well, this is just not true. I am positive that if you did a chemical analysis of the host before and after consecration you would find that nothing had changed that the peice of bread was still bread. So, the very thing that you say Jesus is talking about literally requires a symbolic leap of faith.
I’m about halfway through catching up on this post, so don’t yet know what is to be (has been??) said on this, but I thought this might be worth addressing.
I know that it’s not in scripture, therefore is something that you may refuse to accept, but it should be recognized that throughout history, there have been many miracles involving the consecrated host (bread) turning into
actual flesh, and the consecrated blood (wine) being turned into
actual blood. This has been well documented, and many of these miraculous transformations can still be seen with your own eyes, should you be willing to do some traveling. Scientists have even been able to take samples in recent years, and they have verified, with current scientific equipment, that this truly is human flesh and blood. There have been books written on this, but here’s one treatment of one instance of the
phenomenon.
These are miracles that can be seen and experienced today, even though they happened centuries ago! This is not necessarily irrefutable proof for transubstantiation, but it is certainly enough to give one pause to consider!
If you’ll pardon the deliberate pun, it’s certainly food for thought…