[JHavard]

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

So the fact he contradicts himself means nothing to you?

JH :)

[Lilllabettt]

I don't think he's contradicting himself at all. At Mass, Christ is both physically and spiritually present. The Mass is great for helping us remember. Its just not merely a memorial, from the Catholic point of view.

I assure you that St. Augustine was not schizophrenic. I remind you that St. Augustine was a controversial figure, even in his own time. If his meaning was not apparent to his contemporaries, they would have savaged him for the blatant contradiction.

St. Augustine felt that St. John's Gospel was of a more spiritual nature than the synoptics. He felt that the Lord, when He mentioned the Eucharist as it is recorded in St. John's Gospel, was emphasizing the spiritual nature of Communion with Him.

St. Augustine felt that Jesus was trying to tell us, through St. John, that He did not want us to think of the Mass as a sacramental gas station where we pump out Body and Blood and go home satisfied. Jesus is spiritual nourishment! Many are of the opinion that St. John omitted the Last Supper scene from his Gospel because he was concerned that the early Church had already become overly dependent on rituals, merely relying on empty gestures and forgetting the spiritual nourishment Christ offers in and outside the Mass.