[boatbums]

In other words, although Jesus made abundantly clear throughout his public life that FAITH is decisive in our relationship with God, he stupidly confused the issue—which was ALREADY perfectly clear—by introducing a lot of GRAPHIC language about “gnawing,” “chewing,” and “munching” on his flesh, and drinking his blood. Oh, yes. “Gnawing,” “chewing,” and “munching” on flesh are such obvious metaphors that ANYBODY would think of as a way of talking about “believing.” Yeah. When I read the weather report in the morning, I always “munch” on it, “chew” on it, and “gnaw” on it. Yeah. “This is my body, which is given up for you...This is the chalice of my blood...” Right. ANYBODY would interpret those words to mean, “believe.”

You've never used the phrase, "I'll chew on that awhile."? Tell me, do Catholics allow people to "chew" on the Eucharist wafer now, because when I was a young Roman Catholic, it was forbidden to use your teeth and chew on the thing. What is so hard about seeing metaphors and imagery for what it is? To "gnaw", "chew", "munch" translated from the Greek word "trogo" is a present active participle, as is the Greek "pino", for drink/imbibe, and connotes on ongoing, keeping on, continuous action of eating and drinking. Seeing as we don't chew (put to the tooth) the Communion bread (you don't do you?), then grabbing the tense of the Greek words to somehow prove they aren't metaphor, is over reaching even for Roman Catholicism. Faith in Christ IS ongoing and when we receive Him as Savior/the Bread of Life, we will never hunger or thirst, but are continuously fed by the Spirit. The life we are given is not physical nor carnal, but is spiritual and everlasting.

And getting back to my original point, you cannot help but agree that the bread and wine do NOT physically change to human flesh and blood - it HAS TO BE symbolic and a metaphor. Up until the Platonic and Aristotelian Greek philosophy crept in and words like "transubstance" got used to rationalize the "mystery" of the Lord's Supper, Christians got along just fine understanding that by our faith, belief, we are partaking in the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood for our sins. It was an profession - an outward act - of faith, much like baptism, to remind us of the grace of God and to be an outward testimony to others of our inner faith - a faith that endures to the end.

[metmom]

Tell me, do Catholics allow people to "chew" on the Eucharist wafer now, because when I was a young Roman Catholic, it was forbidden to use your teeth and chew on the thing.

Forbidden was hardly the word.

It was a SIN!!!!

And those nuns struck the fear of God into you about it. They had you thinking that God would strike you dead for doing something like that to Christ's body.

You just had to swallow it whole, after you scraped it off the roof of your mouth with your tongue, where it stuck like it was super-glued on.