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Regarding the presence of Christ, in, among, and for His people: Is the presence described in the Last Supper scene of the Gospels and in John a figurative spiritual presence, or a real physical presence? I agree, the two are not mutually exclusive. But clearly a number of people reject one completely in favor of the other.

I forgot to post this with my earlier comment on this subject.

St Augustine wrote about the presence:

"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man," says Christ, "and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." [John 6:53] This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." Christian Doctrine (3:16)

JH :)

Absolutely! St. Augustine is right, as usual.

He also said:

"Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily Sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him." (City of God 10:20)

"What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the Body of Christ and the chalice [the wine] the Blood of Christ." (Sermons 272)

"Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead find relief through the piety of their friends and relatives who are still alive, when the Sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for them, or when alms are given in the church." (Ench Faith, Hope, Love 29:110)

That prayerful, meditative, genius of a man had a thoroughly Roman Catholic interpretation of Holy Scripture.