[metmom]

If you want to believe that He was being symbolic, by all means, go ahead. I believe He means it when He says the bread that is given us to eat is His body.

And yet Jesus also says that the SPIRIT gives life, the FLESH is no help at all.

Eating the flesh and blood of Jesus, in violation of God's commands throughout Scripture, does not impart spiritual life, much less physical life.

The SPIRIT gives that spiritual life. A person is born from above, born again in the SPIRIT.

Those who worship God worship Him in SPIRIT and truth.

It seems that Catholics are so physical world oriented that they do not have any concept of the spiritual realm that we inhabit and that exists all around us.

There is spiritual reality operating all around us that we cannot sense with our senses, and we live and move through that as well. The New birth is a SPIRITUAL experience/happening that is NOT caused by physical actions.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Grace! Glorious grace! Placemarker.

[MHGinTN]

Your last sentence is a beautiful phrasing for what Jesus told Nicodemus, about being born of water AND The Spirit:
John 3: 4-6 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?” 5 Jesus answered “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.…