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You wrote: Well I think that the questions posed are very appropriate because the Bible also says startlingly clear things like "This is my Body", "You must eat my Flesh and drink my Blood", "You see that a man is jusified by works and not by faith alone", etc... and yet you don't take those teachings at face value, do you? How much clearer can the Bible get, yet you refuse to believe?

"This is My body," "You must eat My flesh and drink My blood," "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" are "startingly clear" teachings!?!?!?

What IS clear about "This is My body" is that Jesus was using a metaphor, as He so often did to vividly illustrate truth. Yes, we must appropriate His sacrifice for ourselves as though we were eating His flesh. If one takes this statement ("This is My body") literally, one would have to take all other metaphors He employed literally also. Like "I am the Light of the world," "I am the Door," "I am the Alpha and Omega," "I am the vine," "You are the branches," "My sheep hear My voice," etc. The same is true of "You must eat My flesh and drink My blood." If one reads the context of John 6, it is so easy to see that eating and drinking are synonymous with "coming to Him," which He repeats over and over. It is also a beautiful illustration of how we are united to Him AND nourished and given life by Him. Oh! The analogy is FULL of wonderful morsels of truth!!! To think you literally bite into His flesh, chew Him up, and swallow Him and drink His blood is.......too ludicrous for words.

As for "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone," at first reading, one may see it your way. But if taken in the context of the passage, and especially if taken in context of the whole of Christ's and the apostles' teaching, it becomes clear that it has been misunderstood. This is what we mean when we claim that the Holy Writings interpret themselves...all the parts shed light on each other...All it takes is reading and comparing.

If one takes this statement ("This is My body") literally, one would have to take all other metaphors He employed literally also.

Oh really?

I guess we have to use Scripture to interpret Scripture in order to puzzle out what he meant when he used metaphors like "I and the Father are one" and "He who has seen me has seen the Father"

Vmatt has a head start on making sense of these particular metaphors.

You have simply started with a fallacy. We use our judgment to determine what is literal and what is figurative. You are saying that we are not allowed to discern, we must accept everything as literal or everything as figurative. I suppose this includes the stories about the Resurrection as well.

As for me, I will use my head to decide which are which. There are no "rules" as you would wish, that force me to accept every metaphor as real.

You, of course, will do the same exact thing, reading some literally and some figuratively. But I won't declare that you must pick on or other mode of thinking, to the exclsusion of the other.

To think you literally bite into His flesh, chew Him up, and swallow Him and drink His blood is.......too ludicrous for words.

Yeah, and to think that a virgin became pregnant without knowing a man and that she gave birth to the Incarnate God is too ludirous for words. To think that a person can have two natures is too ludicrous for words. To think that that divine person was killed and then resurrected is just too ludicrous for words. To think that God is a Trinity is just too ludicrous for words.

If we reject what seems to be too ludicrous for words, then we are all in a lot of trouble. To the unbeliever, pretty much everything we believe is ludicrous.

The Eucharist, and its true understanding which has been taught for 2000 years, is a major stumbling block, just as it was for the Jews in John 6 and just as it is for people like you who reject the historic understanding and teaching of Christianity and choose to follow a heresy that the Reformation[sic] revived and perpetuated.

the808bass, you ask about Tradition, the belief in a non-symbolic Eucharist is a part of that Tradition.

Disclaimer: Please note that my first paragraph is an example of an argument reductio ad absurdum and should in no way cause anyone to think that I deny the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Hypostatic Union, the Crucifixtion, the Resurrection, or the Trinity. I affirm those wonderous Truths with every fiber of my being.

Pray for John Paul II