No, it was exactly one year before that. At the Passover, see Jn 6:4.
But you have confirmed my point for me ...
Whether it was 1 year or several years ... it was before the sacrament was instituted ... so it could have been at most a foreshadowing.
And given that John does not mention the institution during the upper room discourse (John 13-17) ... it is inconceivable that John 6 is about the eucharist.
There is no cogent explanation that I have heard from any RC why John would mention it in John 6, but then fail to mention it in John 13-17.
Given the number of times Jesus mentions 'believe' in John 6 ... I suspect that your theology has blinded you to the main point.
Campion: No, it was exactly one year before that. At the Passover, see Jn 6:4.
Yes, actually on Nisan 3, one year and ten days before the evening of the last supper. But this does not negate the point that dartuser is making, which is really found in verse 35:
"Then Jesus said to them, 'I Am myself continuously being The Bread of The Absolute Life. The one coming to me positively shall not become hungry. And the one continually committing trust unto me poaitively shall not ever thirst.'" (John 6:35 A Precise Translation)
The context of this is as follows:
(1) "Them" in verse 35is the huge crowd of people that was following him as pseudo-disciples, merely for the sake of the bread (and fishes) that he had supplied them, amounting about two hundred denarii worth.
(2) Among them and hearing Him were also His committed student group, who recorded this event.
(3) Quite apparently, the crowd had brought along their own liquid refreshments, wine and/or water, since they did not complain of thirst at the great feeding the day before or on this day.
(4) Note that Lake Genessaret was not very far away, as a generous source of water.
(5) Note also that the day before, this crowd had been processionally coming to Him to inquire of His teaching, His Words, and as they came He lifted up his eyes and gazed on them with rapt attention, probably causing His Own companions to observe and estimate the size of the crowd, and testing the disciples as to how to feed the crowd,
(6) Jesus' method was always teaching in parables, and He has already shown them how to understand the disciple-winning technique of sowing seed (Mt. 13:1-34. He also taught the parable of wells of living spiritual water (Jn. 4:6-14).
(7)Now, He's setting up another teaching demonstration to gauge His disciples' ability to interpret a parable. He's going to use the figurative-literal citation of equating literal bread with the Word of God as a metaphor (Mt. 4:4, Lk.4:4). First, He's going to show them that he has the unparallelled supernatural power to literally feed the crowd, and do it by capitalizing on the faith of a child who surrenders his lunch basket to the Rabbi.
(8) Then the next day, the crowd found him (as He with foreknowledge expected), and he got the crowd seated, and began to teach them again, with the parable of Himself being the Bread from Heaven, the Living Word of The God.
That is the context.
The meaning transmitted by the verse John 6:35 is:
(1) The action of responding to his invitation to come (approach intellectually) unto Him (re Mt. 11:28-29) and learn from Him is the figurative equivalent of being spiritually fed with the Bread of the Word of God, as the day before He had fed them with the literal bread for their physical hunger, and when one comes to Him and His Word, he/she no longer needs to be spiritually hungry.
(2) To continually commit unreserved trust in Him (and in His Word) is figuratively equivalent to never needing to have spiritual thirst for the Word of God, in like fashion as they had continually been close enough to a vast supply of physical water in the lake of Galilee for their physical thirst-quenching.needs.
That is why this whole drama is not about the literal Remembrance supper of the Lord (which is simply a taking of the tokens that remind us of His Passion), but is the invitation to become a committed follower of Him and His Word in company and companionship of other such disciples.
For us, this passage is a lesson in how to recognize and employ figurative language when it is to be distinguished from pedestrian simple literal expressions which by themselves have no spiritual value.
This passage does not lend any support to the doctrine of transubstantiation, dreamed up by the illiteral unimaginative natural mind (1 Cor. 2:14) for the illiterate participant, and its lack of literally changing the substance of the physical components dismisses the doctrine as having any relation to this passage.