"Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day." (John 6:54-55)
If our Lord meant this to be symbolic, He has an odd way of showing it. If someone mistakes your words for literal when you mean them to be symbolic, what you certainly do not do is rephrase yourself in a more stringently literal fashion. Yet this is what our Lord does here. Contrast this with our Lord's behavior in Matthew 16:11, when the disciples take His words about bread literally when He only meant it figuratively (""How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees") or in John 11:13-14 ("Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly: "Lazarus is dead"). In each case, the disciples think Jesus is speaking literally when He is actually speaking figuratively, and to ensure that He is not misunderstood by His followers, Christ clarifies Himself. Note how differently He behaves in John 6: The people are scandalized by what appears to be a very shocking statement of literal truth, and far from dissuade them from this opinion, our Lord goes out of His way to state the truth even more literally and bluntly!
This is demonstrated more plainly in the verb Jesus choose for the word eat. Initially, the verb is phago (φάγω), which simply means "to eat", and much like the English word, can have a variety of meanings. I can eat something literally. I can "eat something up" as a way of expressing delight in it. I can say "eat my dust" to express that I am faster than the person I am saying it to. "Eat your heart out" means to suffer from envy or jealousy while to say I could "eat a horse" simply means I am really hungry. To eat one's words means to be proven wrong about a fact previously asserted, while when I was a kid, Bart Simpson popularized the phrase "eat my shorts", which meant "Get lost." Phago has all the same shades of meaning. Our Lord uses phago in John 6:48-53.
But interestingly enough, in John 6:54 Jesus switches the verb He uses to represent the concept of eating. Instead of the broad, equivocal term phago, He changes to the very pointed term trogon. Trogon (τρώγω), unlike phago, has one very, specific, literal meaning: to gnaw, crunch or chew. It is a univocal term with a single meaning. When our Lord begins to use trogon for "eat" in John 6:54, He is removing the last kernel of doubt from His listeners as to the proper interpretation of His words. The proper English equivalent of trogon would be masticate, which is the scientific term for the act of chewing and is unambiguous.
From John 6:54 on, Christ only uses the word trogon when referring to how believers will "eat" His flesh. A particularly interesting passage in John 6:58, where our Lord uses both phago and trogon together. The passage reads:
"This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live for ever."
The verb "eat" is used twice here, once with reference to the Israelites eating the manna, the other to the faithful eating the Body of Christ. In this passage, Jesus uses phago when referring to the Israelites eating manna but again uses trogon when referring to Himself. The meaning is plain; Jesus wants us to understand that we will "eat" His Body in the most literal, direct sense of the word. This is why He uses sarx for flesh and trogon for eat. Had He meant this teaching to be symbolic, it is hard to understand why He would have
(A) chosen such univocal terms when other more general terms were available that He had used on other occasions.
(B) continued to stress the apparent literal truth of His statements to His scandalized listeners.
(C) failed to offer any clarification or warning that His words were not to be taken literally, even when He had done this on other occasions.
Even when His own disciples start to desert Him, He does not modify or clarify this teaching in the least. This is odd, given the other occasions that He had corrected His disciples understanding were not nearly so serious as this. We would think that in this case especially, if Jesus did mean these words symbolically, He would have said so.
One final thought. It might be objected that Jesus was always misunderstood by people. His own statements about destroying the Temple and raising it up were taken out of context by the Pharisees and used as evidence against Him at His trial, and Jesus made no attempt to clarify Himself to them. Similarly, it could be argued that the fact that Jesus didn't clarify Himself to the unbelieving Jews in John 6 does not mean that He was not actually speaking symbolically. Unbelievers always have and always will misunderstand Jesus, and even as Christ was silent before Pilate, so was He content to let these unbelievers go away confused in John 6.
This is a plausible argument in general, because it cannot be denied that our Lord does remain silent at times and that He apparently feels no obligation t clear up the muddled thoughts of unbelievers, which are usually based on willful disbelief than on sincere confusion. Yet that argument does not hold up in John 6, for the simple reason that it is not only to the unbelieving Jews that He makes these comments, but also to His own disciples, and that even after the Pharisees leave Him, He does not attempt to explain away the literal language in His statements even to His disciples privately.
Does Jesus have an obligation to explain Himself to disciples? While parables are symbolic language are often used by our Lord when He deals with the public or unbelieving, corrupt leadership, we see that Jesus does in fact does explain the meaning behind His parables to His disciples privately. We see this with the Parable of the Wheat and Tares in Matthew 13 ("Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field") and again in Matthew 20:17 when our Lord took the twelve apart privately and explained to them the details of what He had been prophesying about His Passion. So, while allowing unbelievers to walk away confused is plausible, our Lord never sends the disciples away confused. He always takes care that they at least understand His words in the proper sense, and in John 6 He allows them to believe His words to be literal. They may not understand the words at the time (hence Peter's confused but faithful utterance that "You alone have the words of eternal life" in John 6:68), but they believe Him nonetheless.
The assertion that the eating of the flesh of the Son of Man in John 6 is symbolic simply doesn't hold weight when examined linguistically and in the context of other statements made by our Lord. Taken with the fact that the Early Church understood these words to be literal as well, as we have a pretty strong case for the Catholic position on our Lord's Real Presence in the Eucharist.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
From: Acts 9:31-42
The Growth of the Church
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[31] So the Church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied.
Peter Cures a Paralytic at Lydda
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[32] Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints that lived in Lydda. [33] There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed. [34] And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." And immediately he rose. [35] And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.
Peter Raises Tabitha to Life
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[36] Now there was at Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which means Dorcas or Gazelle. She was full of good works and acts of charity. [37] In those days she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. [38] Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him entreating him, "Please come to us without delay." [39] So Peter rose and went with them. And when he had come, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. [40] But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed; then turning to the body he said, "Tabitha, rise." And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. [41] And he gave her his hand and lifted her up. Then calling the saints and widows he presented her alive. [42] And it became know throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
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Commentary:
31. St. Luke breaks his narrative to give an overview of the steady progress of the Church as a whole and of the various communities that have grown up as a result of the Christians' flight from Jerusalem (cf. Acts 2:40, 47; 4:4; 5:14; 6:1, 7; 11:21, 24; 16:5). He emphasizes the peace and consolation the Holy Spirit has brought them. This note of justified optimism and trust in God confirms that God is with His Church and that no human force can destroy it (cf. 5:39).
32. Acts now turns to recount St. Peter's apostolic activity in Palestine. Lydda (cf. 9:32-35), Joppa (cf. 9:36-43) and Maritime Caesarea (cf. 10:24-28; 12:19) were some of the cities in which the head of the Apostles preached the Good News.
"St. Luke goes on to speak about Peter and his visits to the faithful. He does not want to give the impression that fear is the reason for Peter's leaving Jerusalem, and so he first gives an account of the situation of the Church, after indicating, previously, that Peter had stayed in Jerusalem during the persecution. [...] Peter acts like a general reviewing his troops to see that they are properly trained and in good order, and to discover where his presence is most needed. We see him going in all directions and we find him in all parts. If he makes this present journey it is because he thinks that the faithful are in need of his teaching and encouragement" (Chrysostom, "Hom. On Acts", 21).
The last report Acts gives of St. Peter deals with his intervention at the Council of Jerusalem (Chapter 15).
33-35. St. Peter takes the initiative; he does not wait for the paralyzed man to seek his help. We are told about the man being sick for eight years, to show how difficult he was to cure--and yet through the power of Jesus Christ he is cured "immediately". "Why did Peter not wait for the man to show his faith? Why did he not first ask him if he wanted to be cured? Surely because it was necessary to impress the people by means of this miracle" (Chrysostom, "Hom. on Acts, 21). However, the conversion of the people of Lydda and Sharon was also the result of Peter's work: miracles are not designed to make life easier for the Apostles; their tireless preaching is by no means secondary or superfluous.
36-43. Joppa, (Jaffa, today virtually part of Tel Aviv) is mentioned in the writings of Tell-el-Amarna where it is called Iapu. Its people were converted to Judaism in the time of Simon Maccabeus (c. 140 B.C.).
The miracle of the raising of Tabitha by Peter is the first one of its kind reported in Acts. Here, as in the Gospel, miracles are performed to awaken faith in those who witness them with good dispositions and a readiness to believe. In this case the miracle is a kindness God shows Tabitha to reward her virtues, and an encouragement to the Christians of Joppa.
"In the Acts of the Apostles," St. Cyprian writes, "it is clear that alms not only free us from spiritual death, but also from temporal death. Tabitha, a woman who did many `good works and acts of charity,' had taken ill and died: and Peter was sent for. No sooner had he arrived, with all the diligence of his apostolic charity, than he was surrounded by widows in tears..., praying for the dead woman more by gestures than by words. Peter believed that he could obtain what they were asking for so intensely and that Christ's help would be available in answer to the prayers of the poor in whose persons He Himself had been clothed. [...] And so it was: He did come to Peter's aid, to whom He had said in the Gospel that He would grant everything asked for in His name. For this reason He stops the course of death and the woman returns to life, and to the amazement of all she revives, restoring her risen body to the light of day. Such was the power of works of mercy, of good deeds" ("De Opere Et Eleemosynis", 6).