Your question was loaded since we serve the historic Jesus while Protestants serve their version of Jesus that fits their personal beliefs.
And what more could be said that when Jesus declared the Eucharist and those listening left in revulsion that he let them leave. He didn’t explain like he did in the parables. He let them go.
Ever since the beginning of Christianity that charge of cannibalism has been hurled, yet we still proclaim the Eucharist is the true body and blood of the Lord because
“As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (John 6:57).
If you do not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man you will have no life in you.
We have justly taught this doctrine. Even Martin Luther and some of the reformers taught this.
For more details see https://www.catholic.com/tract/christ-in-the-eucharist
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
I posted the next verse for clarity. Now here is what he then said to the disciploes who remianed with Him, clarifying what He meant as spiritual rather than carnal:
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
The ones who walked away knew the Law of Moses and the teaching on cannibalism. They wanted carnal signs to mkae Jesus prove ON THEIR TERMS that He was Messiah. Ask your self, did Jesus say He lives because He eats the RFather? Your line of resaoning indicates you must beklieve that Jesus lived because He literally ate the Father. As a dyed in the wool Catholic it is not possible for you to see that glaring error! And so you continue to blaspheme
Tell me, Catholic, why must you keep eating if you receive eternal life with the first bite? Is there an amount you must consume eventually adding up to eternal life? Did you ignore what Jesus siad that those who eat will never hunger? When a man dies, is there an accounting of how much of Jesus they have eaten? How did the thief on the cross get a nibble if eating the flesh is so vital? And finally, again Jesus tells us the flesh profiteth nothng. It is the spirit that gives life and the words He spoke were spirit and life. You have to work hard to twist that plain teaching into the pagan practice central to catholiciism.
Avoiding answering the central question regarding which Jesus do you believe your priests serve to you, which Jesus are you eating, Catholic?
Yet Jesus did NOT tell Doubting Thomas to lick his fingers after placing them in His wounds.
Actually, contrary to your isolationist eisegesis, John 6:25–69 is part of a pattern in the Lord's teaching manifest in prior chapters and elsewhere, in which He often uses puzzling speech which calls for further inquiry in order to understand it, but which is also a test to separate those who will pursue the meaning vs, those who will not.
Thus we see many examples of the Lord speaking in an apparently physical ways in order to reveal the spiritual meaning to those who awaited the meaning, which, as elsewhere, the Lord revealed to true seekers while letting the carnally minded to their own delusions. And which is seen with His use of parables elsewhere: "Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:" Matthew 13:13-14)
In Jn. 2:19,20, the Lord spoke in a way that seems to refer to destroying the physical temple in which He had just drove out the money changers, and left the Jews to that misapprehension of His words, so that this was a charge during His trial and crucifixion by the carnally minded. (Mk. 14:58; 15:29) Meaning that rather than the Lord having cleared up a misunderstanding before they left; He allowed them to reject their salvation on a mistake.
And in which cases, as is characteristic of John, and as seen in Jn. 6:63, the Spirit of the Lord or Him personally goes on to distinguish btwn what is the below versus the above, the flesh and the Spirit, the temporal and the eternal, yet the Lord not personally clearly explaining this at the time:
Thus the words,
And which means that had those carnally-minded Jews in John 6, who were looking for physical food, (John 6:26) had continued on in seeking the spirtual meaning, then they would have understood, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," (John 6:57) and "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63)
For "just how did Christ live by the Father"? The manifest answer is that the manner by which the Lord lived by the Father was as per Mt. 4:4: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Thus for the Lord Jesus who lived by every word of God, the doing of His will was "meat."
For as referred to above, once again using metaphor, the Lord stated to disciples who thought He was referring to physical bread,
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. (John 4:34)
And consistent with this the Lord revealed that He would not even be with them physically in the future, thus not being able to provide them with His literal flesh as they would have presumed He was saying must be done (versus the metaphysical gymnastics Catholicism engages in): “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:62-63)
And which meaning of ingestion of God’s word, which Jeremiah says “were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts” Jeremiah 15:16) and which David said are “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb,” (Psalms 19:10) is the only meaning that comports with the rest of the NT.
For as seen in what follows in John, and the rest of the NT, the Holy Spirit only and always taught that that obtaining spiritual life was by receiving the word of the gospel, and never shows this was by actual physical ingestion of anything.
For instead, one "lives by" (upon) God's word as well, first by repentant faith in the gospel and then by feeding upon the word of God. For while the Lord's supper is nowhere referred to as spiritual food anywhere interpretive of John 6 (Acts thru Rev.) the word of God what is taught as being spiritual nourishment, being uniquely called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by which believers are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up. (Acts 20:32)
For the word is what is to be salvitated for, chewed slowly yet thorughly, consumed, received meditated upon, giving spiritual life:
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. (Isaiah 55:1-3)
There simply is no other meaning which conflates with the rest of Scripture and esp. Acts thru Revelation which best reveals how the NT church church.
And therefore what we see in the only book with description of detail in the inspired record of how the NT church understood the gospels, it was of the Lord's supper being that of effectually remembering His death by thus showing it by sharing a meal with others who were bought by His sinless shed blood, thus declaring union with Christ and each other as being "one bread," analogous to how pagans have fellowship in their dedicatory feasts, (The Lord's Supper:metaphorical or metaphysical?)