I said "liver" since there are Catholic "miracles", which have been posted on FR, which involve wafers transforming into chunks of a liver or a heart in order to demonstrate their true nature. But, probably, it is a piece of a donkey or a chicken that the priest put into a bottle.
I say it's about the insufficiency of carnal food to give everlasting life,
Who cares what you say? What matters is what you can demonstrate. Your assertion is meaningless if you can't answer what I have said. Either Augustine is talking about the "meat" that comes down from heaven, or he isn't. And, obviously, I have proven the former, while you have failed at the latter.
That is, there's no reason at all to even receive the "symbolic" Eucharist, because, after all, just "believe, and you have eaten already".
There is plenty of reason to receive the Eucharist, but not to accomplish what is already done spiritually. It is, as Augustine puts it, to "set our hearts on heaven" and to "treasure unity" amongst ourselves. It is a way of celebrating what has occurred spiritually, not carnally. Why? Because we also are the bread, and the wine, which is offered on the table. Augustine even goes at some length describing how the Christian is like bread, molded unto Christ.
It's amazing though you quote his sermon 227. Here's another portion of that sermon:
I quoted this myself, and none of it contradicts what I have explained are his teachings. Lutherans and even Reformed Presbyterians have these same teachings and speak in the same way. You must come to understand the difference between them and the Catholic teaching of Transubstantiation, which is alien to the scripture, as well as placing salvation into the hands of a carnal act, rather than a spiritual one.
Note be didn't say, "eating the meat is a metaphor" he said "to eat the meat, first believe, and then you have eaten already". This is not something that is foreign to a Catholic. You have to believe Jesus first before consuming the consecrated bread.
Your very own words contradict it. If you have "eaten already," then consuming the consecrated bread is a redundancy.
So then the point of “first believe and you have eaten already” is not to say that we shouldn’t receive the Eucharist. So then to quote that as a “refutation” to the Dogma of Transubstantiation is misapplication of the quote because it has nothing to do with the nature of it. It’s not speaking of the nature of the Eucharist rather the importance of the belief in Christ just as I said!
“If you have “eaten already,” then consuming the consecrated bread is a redundancy.”
Again, what you aren’t getting is that kind of “logic” goes both ways if “believe and you have eaten already” means what you say it means. Because I can easily say to you (as I already have), “if you have ‘eaten already’ then consuming a symbol is a redundancy”.