simguy83 said:
Anybody who reads either of those verses regarding communion will take it as symbolic. Unless of course they have been poisoned by the highly blashpeming and insulting catholic doctrines which will then influence their thinking. Jesus often spoke in parables and used symbolic language, his work is finished - it is not repeated constantly.
Jesus said, "This IS my body," not "This represents my body." Same with His blood. Aramaic has about 20 different words meaning "to represent." So why would Jesus have chosen the verb "to be" when he could've chosen a plethora of other verbs? That would mean the authors of the 4 Gospels, under inspiration from the Holy Spirit, recorded a word that didn't intend Our Lord's true meaning even though there were other words available.
As for Jesus using symbolic language, let's take, for example, Jesus' description of Himself as a vine in John 15:1-5. Perhaps you may argue that Jesus wasn't saying that He was present in the vine. Well, that argument is invalid for 2 reasons:
1. The entire context about the vine is symbolic. Jesus uses fruit as a metaphor to describe a person's works, and he uses a gardener as a metaphor to describe the Father. The context in which Jesus said the bread was His body was during the most sacred event for the Jewish people (the Passover). In addition, Jesus was not holding a vine in his hands when he said, "I am the vine" . In fact, He was holding the bread in His hands when he said, "This is my body."
2. In the passage about the vine, no one asks, "How can this man claim to be a plant?" In other words, no one understood Him literally like the disciples did in John 6.
And as for Jesus' work being finished, you're absolutely right. Catholics don't believe that Jesus is resacrificed in the Mass! Rather, the Mass is the one sacrifice of Calvary made present once again on the altar. In Genesis 24:18, Melchizedek, King of Salem, was a priest, and he offered sacrifice under the form of bread and wine. Psalm 109 predicts that Christ will be a priest according to the line of Melchizedek, that is, offering a sacrifice under the forms of bread and wine. And it would continue too, according to Malachi 1:11: "From the rising of the sun even to the going down my name is great among the Gentiles: and in every place there is a sacrifice and there is offered to my name a clean oblation." The Mass is that sacrifice!