It is literal. All those who say it is symbolic are heretics. You shouldn't talk about religion with heretics unless you have a very strong faith.

So, I've been reading, listening to, and watching many tracts that are promoted by Protestants to assert that the Lord's Supper is symbolic.

Point one:  protestants are heretics.  If you listen to heretics
and contemplate their heresies, don't be surprised if you
begin to believe them, and if you do, then you become
a heretic as well, outside the Church where there is no
salvation.  So beware!  Your very soul is at stake.  

It is literal. All those who say it is symbolic are heretics. You shouldn't talk about religion with heretics unless you have a very strong faith.

Listen to Matto.  If you dare.  You probably won't.  Too bad.

I've watched many Catholic apologetics, and probably memorized all of them. But one major doubt remains:

Jesus said we are truly going to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, but I don't see anything that implies that the substance of the bread and wine changes into His Very Flesh.

Read the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St John.

As Nadir said,

You refer to John chapter 6.  There are several passages in
that chapter that give you what you're looking for, but you
might not recognize it because of your prejudice, the same
prejudice the protestants have, and you have learned it
from them, that is, if you didn't teach it to them in the first
place.  The crux of the matter is when the many walked
away, for "it was a hard saying" and who could accept it?  

What was a hard saying, hard enough that they would walk
away from the man who could calm storms, cure the sick,
heal the blind and deaf and lame, and raise the dead to
life?  He did these things with the utterance of His words.
He created reality with the act of His will.  And you have the
temerity to say that He is not able to change the substance
of bread and wine as He taught His Apostles they could do?  

We have no question that He did so because the Church has
preserved this doctrine for 2,000 years (almost).  We have
the diligent investigation of the saints and Doctors of the
Church, foremost among whom is St. Thomas Aquinas, the
Doctor of the Holy Eucharist.  Have you ever heard of him?

I know that the passover and eating of the lamb were truly prefigurements of this cleansing sacrifice, and that in order to be fully forgiven we have to eat the flesh of the lamb, but couldn't it be symbolically eating and drinking? I'm not seeing any sign of the bread and wine literally changing into the Lord's Flesh.

Of course, the OT paschal seder meal was symbolic.  It was
not a sacrament.  Our Lord gave us sacraments, which are
instituted by Him and Him alone, not by Moses or Abraham,
as holy as they may be.  The holy priest Mechisadech offered
bread and wine in prefigurement of what would come in the
future:  why didn't they stone him!  He was imitating the
unacceptable sacrifice of Cain who killed Abel -- his brother
who offered the acceptable sacrifice!  What's going on here?!?

Holy Mother Church answers all these questions, if you would
listen and learn.  Would you?  

In the past you have not.  Have you changed, gobosox91?

Also being in Matthew's account of the Last Supper, Jesus then says about the chalice that He won't drink "the fruit of the vine..." That just makes me wonder if even He has asserted that it was just wine?

You really are a protestant, aren't you?  Do you know what
analogy is?  Do you even care?  

I once spoke to somebody about this issue and I referenced 1 Corinthians 11, when Paul warns of eating and drinking Judgment to ourselves if we eat and drink unworthily, as signs that this was not a mere symbol because symbols cannot have someone killed, but he then proceeded to reference Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10:1-2, when they were killed for offering bad incense, pointing out that incense is symbolic, too, not literal...

Like I said, if you cared about analogy, then you may be
able to see that the OT was in the old dispensation and gave
an unclear picture of what would become clearly in focus
when Our Lord came to perfect it.  What is referenced in the
Old Testament when people died like that was what would be
an eternal death in the New Testament, in reference to our
own particular judgment when we would be sent to hell
forever for our pertinacious lack of faith, for our unwillingness
to believe, for our persistent doubt and refusal to accept with
docility what Holy Mother Church teaches with all her wisdom.
In other words, like gobosox91 in his relentless doubt and
invincibly-but-culpable ignorance of the Truth of God's
divine revelation.

But I look at the first letter to the Corinthians, in which Paul compares this celebration with the sacrifices of the Gentiles and those who continue to obey Moses' commandments, using language that reflects that prophecy of Malachi, that being the "Table of the Lord" compared to the altars.

St. Paul was evangelizing to the Gentiles, using what had been
their understanding in ages past to help them to see as he
himself had seen -- miraculously.  Some converted, but many
did not.  Are you one of the former, gobo, or the latter?  It's
up to you.



.

And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body.

Umm...I really don't know how you can NOT take these words absolutely literally.  I see not one speck of symbolism spoken of here.  This is one of the many COMMANDS of Jesus in the Holy Gospels.  You can't get any clearer than this.

I understand the Fathers all thought the Eucharist was the actual Flesh of our Lord, but you gotta imagine what your every day Protestant will think: Bible, not Fathers.

Yes, but I thought you were asking for yourself.  Honestly, the Bible verses already given should be enough, but one has to be open to the Truth.  Clearly they are not.

I have learned that after a time, if they are still stuck in their heresy, I shake the dust off from my sandals.....the rest is up to God.

I understand the Fathers all thought the Eucharist was the actual Flesh of our Lord, but you gotta imagine what your every day Protestant will think: Bible, not Fathers.

They will, but there is plenty of evidence there from the Bible.  In addition to the verses already mentioned. St. Paul says that we eat and drink damnation upon ourselves if we eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord without discerning the Body.  Does that seem like a reasonable statement about eating a piece of mere bread without recognizing its symbolic value?  

Also, it is worth pointing out that pretty much no one concluded that the the Eucharist was a symbol before the Protestant revolt.  Even the  very professional, A-list heretics of history did not deny the Real Presence.  Arius didn't.  Eutyches didn't.  Nestorius didn't.  Modern day Monophysites, like the Armenians, don't.  Modern day Nestorians don't.  Modern day Arians sometimes do, but modern day Arians are LIBERAL PROTESTANT.  Is this company that a "Bible-believing" Evangelical Protestant wants to be in?

And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body.

Umm...I really don't know how you can NOT take these words absolutely literally.  I see not one speck of symbolism spoken of here.  This is one of the many COMMANDS of Jesus in the Holy Gospels.  You can't get any clearer than this.

The Command was:  "Take ye, and eat."  

What follows that is not a command, but a statement of fact, a
proposition, a precept:  "This is my body."  

There is a difference between a command and a proposition.
And the difference is in itself, per se, and in its application.  

We can disobey a command, for instance by not eating the Blessed
Sacrament, the Body of Christ.  And by doing so, we would be
putting ourselves among those who refuse to obey God, which is a
common trait of ALL those in hell, and a universally ABSENT trait
of all those in heaven.  

But we cannot disobey a proposition.  

Examples:
Wood comes from trees;  the sky is blue;  water is wet.

How can you "disobey" those propositions?   You cannot disobey
them because they are not commands, they are not orders, they
are not asking anything from you or for you to do.  They are simply
stating facts.  

When Our Lord said, "This is my body," He was stating a fact.  But
in His case, when He said this, His words caused the reality He was
speaking to become real, in effect.  He was creating a reality, just
as He created light by saying, "Let there be light" (Gen. i. 3; II Cor.
iv. 6).

In both cases, the verb is "to be."  

We can know these things are not commandments and they are
instead propositions because we can state their contradictory:  

Wood does not come from trees;  the sky is not blue;  water is not
wet."  We know those things are false.  They are lies.  

So too, it would be a falsehood to substitute "This is not my body,"
or "Let there not be light."  And that is what the naysayers do
when they say that Our Lord's words were "symbolic."  They are
saying that what He said was false;  they accuse Him Who said
"Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass
away" (Mk xiii. 31) and "I am the way, the truth and the life"
(Jn. xiv. 6), of being a liar.  


They would make the true and the false as if it were the same thing.
They would thereby become the sons of satan, who was a liar from
the beginning (cf. Jn viii. 44).  That is what heretics do.


.

Christ said it. The Church taught it.  I believe it.  
Enough said.

I like the way you think.