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Protestants didn't invent this "spin." God invented metaphor. He's the one who wired our brains to recognize it. Even your own Augustine gives essentially the same rule, a joining of two domains so different they can't be linked literally, so the mind goes to "Plan B," and finds a metaphor. He gives several examples in one paragraph:

Here's the rule in it's general form:

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.

Here's our passage under discussion:

1) The Flesh of the Son of Man:

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, you 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 [communicandem] in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory [in memoria] of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.

But he keeps on going, which helps us understand what he means by figure is exactly what we moderns call a metaphor

2) Coals of fire::

Scripture says: “If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink;” and this is beyond doubt a command to do a kindness. But in what follows, “for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head,” one would think a deed of malevolence was enjoined. Do not doubt, then, that the expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man's pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his assistance in distress.

3) Losing one's life:

In the same way, when our Lord says, “He who loves his life shall lose it,” we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with which it is a man's duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative sense, “Let him lose his life”— that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal.

4) Don't help a sinner:

It is written: “Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner.” The latter clause of this sentence seems to forbid benevolence; for it says, “help not a sinner.” Understand, therefore, that “sinner” is put figuratively for sin, so that it is his sin you are not to help.

All of the above is available here:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm

It's a good rule he's giving. What sort of Protestant was he, BTW? If you think this is Protestant spin, then you must admit Augustine was, on this one point at least, a Protestant, so I was hoping you might tell me what variety. Oh wait, this was all written over a thousand years before young Luther was even a twinkle in his mother's eyes. Never mind.

But surely this renegade Augustine was chastised for these saying, as he would be today if he posted them on the FR RF, as, you know, one of those irritating posters who won't tell you their denominational affiliation? The Protestants and evangelicals would claim him and folks like yourself would accuse him of "spinning" the word of God, I have no doubt. So naturally I assume he must have been censured by the Roman magisterium for saying something so obviously out of alignment with the modern Roman view of that passage. Oh wait, y'all made him a saint. Hmmm. Never mind.

BTW, I call the reader's attention to the fact that your answer was void of any substance that might have refuted my assessment of John 6. Let's go over it so folks can see I'm not just returning bluster for bluster:

You said:

Admit it that the Protestants don’t have the Real Presence of Jesus Body and Blood, so they protest.

The physical properties of Christ are located in Heaven, where they will remain till His return. We are specifically warned by Jesus not to go looking for Him on earth before he returns in glory:

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
(Matthew 24:23-26)

But we do have the real presence of Jesus, every day in every way essential to our spiritual needs:

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
(Romans 8:9)

See that? You can't even be a Christian without having the Spirit of Christ. Would you argue his spirit is unreal? If you admit it is real, and it is with all who believe, as spoken of all throughout Scripture, how then do we not have his real presence? We do. Really.

You said:

The Protestants are like the followers in the Bible (John) that didn’t believe the words of Jesus and stopped following Jesus.

LOL. Nice try, but the crowd in John 6 that disbelieved Jesus were the literalists. Protestants/evangelicals are the ones actually following the example of Peter, who grasped what the metaphor was teaching about our utter dependence on Christ, our need to have faith in Him, to receive Him as Messiah and Son of God, if we would have eternal life, and all our spiritual hungers and thirsts satisfied.

You said:

Just because you and others say so, doesn’t make it the Truth.

The first thing you've said that I totally agree with. We do not survive by feeding on the opinion of man, whether it be you, me or anybody else, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Kudos to you for the observation. Now apply it to the inventors of your transubstantive opinion, the 9th Century monk Radbertus, or Aquinas, or any of the other late-comers who have tried to convert a blessed memorial of Christ's love for us into neoplatonic magic that enhances the power of their priesthood at the expense of divine truth.

You said:

It must make you uncomfortable to say that you follow Jesus, except for God’s gift of His Body and Blood among other teachings.

Be assured, we are already possessors of the gift of His body and blood, which He gave for us so long ago. So far from discomfort it is the supreme joy of every believer that we have forgiveness, acquittal from certain judgment, through His offering for our sin by the killing of His body and the shedding of His blood. This is something so critical that the literalists miss:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20)

This is an expression of the Hebraic exchange of life principle. Our old, sinful self has been crucified with Christ. He has taken our sin as if it were His own, and given us His own life, as if it were ours, an exchange of lives. This is what feeds us, according to the teaching of John 6, faith in Jesus who gives us His life, like life-sustaining bread, like thirst-quenching drink. All that we have, we have because He gave His body and His blood so that we could be made new creations in Him.

In sum then, you've offered no refutation. OK.

Peace,

SR

Again protest spin. I do believe that someone has sold you an incorrect understanding of the Word of God. I think that protestants do not realize that their protests of the Catholic Church does not change the Word of God entrusted to the Catholic Church until the end of time. I do hope that you gain a true understanding and gain salvation with God.

St Augustine believed in the Real Presence:

Actually, the Fathers of the Church were clearly unanimous when it comes to the Real Presence. As far as Tertullian is concerned, there is some question as to whether or not he should be categorized as a true Church Father because of the fact that he died a Montanist heretic. But that doesn’t really matter for our purpose here, because he clearly did believe in the Real Presence anyway.

When Tertullian and St. Augustine use the term “figurative,” they do not mean to deny the Real Presence. In the texts cited, St. Augustine, for example, is warning against falling into the trap of believing the Lord was going to cut off parts of his body and give them to us. This would be cannibalistic and that is a definite no-no.

Indeed, both Tertullian and St. Augustine are emphasizing the fact that the Lord’s body and blood are communicated under the “appearances,” “signs,” or “symbols” of bread and wine. “Figure” is another synonym for “sign.” Even today the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the terms “sign” and “symbol” to describe the Eucharist in paragraphs 1148 and 1412.

In the case of Tertullian, all we have to do is go on reading in the very document quoted above to get a sense of how he is using the term “figure,” and it is entirely Catholic. Notice what he goes on to say:

Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body...

Tertullian’s point here is that Marcion’s “theory of a phantom body” fits with Christ “pretend[ing] the bread was His body,” because Marcion denied Jesus had a body in the first place. But the Christian believes Christ “made it His own body, by saying, This is my body.” The transformation does not take away the symbolic value of bread and wine, it confirms it.

Tertullian makes clear in multiple places that he believed that Jesus communicated his true body and blood under the “figures” or appearances of bread and wine:

From Catholic answers:http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/eucharist

I. THE REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST

In this section we shall consider, first, the fact of the Real Presence, which is, indeed, the central dogma; then the several allied dogmas grouped about it, namely, the Totality of Presence, Transubstantiation, Permanence of Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist; and, finally, the speculations of reason, so far as speculative investigation regarding the august mystery under its various aspects is permissible, and so far as it is desirable to illumine it by the light of philosophy.

(1) The Real Presence as a Fact

According to the teaching of theology a revealed fact can be proved solely by recurrence to the sources of faith, viz. Scripture and Tradition, with which is also bound up the infallible magisterium of the Church.

(a) Proof from Scripture

This may be adduced both from the words of promise (John, vi, 26 sqq.) and, especially, from the words of Institution as recorded in the Synoptics and St. Paul (I Cor., xi, 23 sqq.). By the miracles of the loaves and fishes and the walking upon the waters, on the previous day, Christ not only prepared His hearers for the sublime discourse containing the promise of the Eucharist, but also proved to them that He possessed, as Almighty God-man, a power superior to and independent of the laws of nature, and could, therefore, provide such a supernatural food, none other, in fact, than His own Flesh and Blood.

This discourse was delivered at Capharnaum (John, vi, 26-72), and is divided into two distinct parts, about the relation of which Catholic exegetes vary in opinion. Nothing hinders our interpreting the first part [John, vi, 26-48 (51)] metaphorically and understanding by “bread of heaven” Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a figurative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. Such a figurative explanation of the second part of the discourse (John, vi, 52-72), however, is not only unusual but absolutely impossible, as even Protestant exegetes (Delitzsch, Köstlin, Keil, Kahnis, and others) readily concede.

First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpretation of the words: “eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood”.

For Christ mentions a three-fold food in His address, the manna of the past (John, vi, 31, 32, 49, 59), the heavenly bread of the present (John, vi, 32 sq.), and the Bread of Life of the future (John, vi, 27, 52).

Corresponding to the three kinds of food and the three periods, there are as many dispensers—Moses dispensing the manna, the Father nourishing man’s faith in the Son of God made flesh, finally Christ giving His own Flesh and Blood.

Although the manna, a type of the Eucharist, was indeed eaten with the mouth, it could not, being a transitory food, ward off death.

The second food, that offered by the Heavenly Father, is the bread of heaven, which He dispenses hic et nunc to the Jews for their spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as by reason of the Incarnation He holds up His Son to them as the object of their faith.

If, however, the third kind of food, which Christ Himself promises to give only at a future time, is a new refection, differing from the last-named food of faith, it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion.

This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expression “to chew” (John, vi, 54, 56, 58: trogein) when speaking of this, His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, “to eat” (John, vi, 51, 53: phagein).

Cardinal Bellarmine (De Euchar., I, 3), moreover, calls attention to the fact, and rightly so, that if in Christ’s mind the manna was a figure of the Eucharist, the latter must have been something more than merely blessed bread, as otherwise the prototype would not substantially excel the type. The same holds true of the other figures of the Eucharist, as the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech, the loaves of proposition (panes propositionis), the paschal lamb.

The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text:

“Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed” (John, vi, 54-56).

It is true that even among the Semites, and in Scripture itself, the phrase, “to eat some one’s flesh”, has a figurative meaning, namely, “to persecute, to bitterly hate some one”.

If, then, the words of Jesus are to be taken figuratively, it would appear that Christ had promised to His enemies eternal life and a glorious resurrection in recompense for the injuries and persecutions directed against Him.

The other phrase, “to drink some one’s blood”, in Scripture, especially, has no other figurative meaning than that of dire chastisement (cf. Is., xlix, 26; Apoc., xvi, 6); but, in the present text, this interpretation is just as impossible here as in the phrase, “to eat some one’s flesh”.

Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally.