The spiritual food refill doctrine of the Catholic Mass

John chapter 6 has Jesus saying he will feed people with his body and blood. This is symbolism but Catholics argue that the chapter teaches that God can and will turn bread into the body of Jesus and the cup into his blood to be our spiritual food and drink. Catholics think that they have this food until the digestive system deals with it in ten or so minutes.

Jesus said that those who eat his bread will never hunger and it is his flesh and he who eats it will live forever. So Jesus said that anybody who eats him would never hunger (verse 35, 57). He may mean spiritually. They will not hunger for grace. Protestants might think that if Jesus is physically in the Eucharist then anybody who eats it will never physically hunger again. But if it means grace then people do hunger for grace after the Eucharist for they are still imperfect and need this grace, this special supernatural help from God. It must mean grace for even the body of Christ cannot satisfy without its being infused with grace. But suppose it means the body of Jesus. Even Catholics hunger for another feed of Jesus’ body. If Jesus means that he is eaten as a symbol for emotionally and spiritually loving him and enjoying him the passage makes complete sense. To eat then would mean to realise that Jesus is and accept him as your emotional and spiritual fulfilment. Eat means fall in love with Jesus who suffers for your sins. Eat means that so to eat his body means to love his person and to drink his blood means to love his suffering and bleeding for your sins.

Not a single word in the chapter hints that you are to top up the food. It is once for all feeding. It is permanent nourishment or permanent sustenance. The Catholic Eucharist is not permanent nourishment for Jesus only feeds you until the communion wafer is turned into ordinary food in the stomach which takes about ten or fifteen minutes. If he stays behind after the wafer is gone then it is impossible to see what the Eucharist would need to be received over and over again for.

The Jews ask for the bread of life always. Jesus promises whoever gets the bread will never hunger. Does he mean that you eat it the once and never get hungry again or does he mean a supply of it will always be guaranteed? Roman Catholicism likes the last interpretation because it thinks it justifies having to get communion regularly. If a once for all feeding would do, that is not normal feeding at all. It would mean Jesus is not talking about holy communion for that is too much like normal feeding where you need it again and again. It means the soul is nourished permanently. It is a non-material feeding and has nothing to do with bread turning into Jesus. The text probably means a once for all feeding. Nothing in the context indicates that it meant a continual supply of food. He says there will be hunger because he wishes to stress the point. A continual supply is what you have if you keep getting hungry. A once for all magical ingestion of bread would mean the end of hunger or the risk of hunger.

If the Eucharist were really this food that ended all physical or spiritual hunger then the Church would only administer it the once. That would mean that Catholic Masses were mostly invalid for only First Communion Masses would be valid. What would happen is that if you receive the body and blood of Jesus in communion a miracle of God would put the body and blood of Christ in your body forever. The substance of Jesus would somehow be still in your body even after the forms of bread and wine are absorbed and digested. The Church’s interpretation of Jesus' last supper words when he called food and drink his body and blood “Do this in memory of me” as commanding endless Eucharists, then contradicts this view. Why doesn’t Jesus just transubstantiate our bodies into his own if he wants to be bodily close to us? It makes sense if he starts transubstantiation because he so keen on being with us physically, he would arrange that he could be permanently resident in our bodies by transubstantiation so that our bodies seem to be normal flesh and blood but are actually his body and blood. Perhaps eat my flesh and drink my blood is a metaphor for consenting to be turned into the body and blood of Christ. In a sense, if you consent you are assimilating them and the word eat or drink could be used to picture that.

Whatever the chapter refers to it is not the Catholic Mass. The Mass blasphemes the doctrine that Jesus alone is permanent food. If Jesus is your permanent food then the Mass gives you a counterfeit of a relationship with Jesus.