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Again, I take Jesus at His word. He said over and again that we must eat His body and drink His blood to have His life in us.

Yet throughout the Gospel of John it was believe, believe, believe, believe. IIRC the word is used close to 70 times in conjunction with what one has to do to be saved.

Peter told the people on Pentecost to repent and be baptized.

Paul wrote extensively about believing as did the other writers of the NT.

What about all of the people Jesus encountered prior to John 6, and even afterwards, when He addressed salvation in terms of belief? He did not mention having to eat and drink His blood as claimed by roman catholicism. Did He change the means of salvation mid-stream and not tell the people He encountered about this??

Which, and for the umpteenth time, would have been a violation of the Law to drink the blood, yet that doesn't seem to matter to catholics. Never in the sacrifices of the Law do you find the blood being consumed nor the flesh eaten by the one making the sacrifice. Why would Jesus now be rewriting the Law?

How does the catholic address these two issues?

Here is how a Catholic addresses these issues: "Clearly we have different perspectives. So go ahead and believe based on your perspective and I will continue to believe based on my perspective." If the Catholic is correct then Jesus profaned the Passover He celebrated with His disciples the night before He offered up the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.

Polycarp opposed such profaning changes by the leaders of the Rome Church (not leaders of all Christian congregants, to be sure; the Asia Minor bodies of believers continue to follow the lead of Jesus, continuing the Passover celebration on Nisan 14, never violating The Law which shall not pass away until ...).

So pagan rites and practices got incorporated into the Catholic religion, as it slipped away from Christianity under the persecutions rising in Rome and some of the provinces, often connected to stamping out Judaism and in the process treating Christians as a sect of Judaism. When John penned what Jesus spoke to the Seven churches, the message contained a warning against slipping into paganism as a means to avoid persecution. Rome ignored the message since Jesus did not address them directly, apparently.

How does the catholic address these two issues?

By...

"What?
"Did you say something?"

or...

"Which two?"