Spiritual food

“ It is as impossible for infants to remain infants for ever in heaven, as it is for them to continue infants indefinitely on earth.
But how does the spiritual body grow?
The natural body lives by bread; but the spiritual body, by the words that proceed out of the mouth of God. We cannot live by bread alone or by natural food. We require spiritual food for the organic spiritual side of our life. Spiritual food is affection and thought; or in more comprehensive terms, good and truth. ”

“ On account of this peculiarity, the meat-offerings cannot have denoted merely the sanctification of earthly food, but were symbols of the spiritual food prepared and enjoyed by the congregation of the Lord. If even the earthly life is not sustained and nourished merely by the daily bread which a man procures and enjoys, but by the power of divine grace, which strengthens and blesses the food as means of preserving life ”

“ II. Corporal food produces three effects on the body; it strengthens, satiates, and preserves life. Three similar effects, as the Angelical Doctor observes are produced in the soul by the eucharistic bread. This divine food strengthens it by giving it grace and virtue to overcome vice and bad habits. Next, it satiates the soul, by creating a disgust of earthly pleasures ”

“ It is not such preaching as you hear all the time. A great many of you probably were professing Christians before you became "Mormons;" and you have been used to what we call spiritual food. Good heavens, whoever partook of spiritual food in the flesh, except he first partook of natural food? ”

“ The new-born understanding — that neither food nor the stomach, without the consent of mortal mind, could make her suffer — brought with it another lesson, namely, that gustatory pleasure is a sensuous illusion, an illusion that diminishes as we understand our spiritual being and ascend the ladder of Life.
This woman learned that food neither strengthens nor weakens the body, — that mind alone does this. True, mortal mind has its material methods of doing it; one of which is to say that proper food supplies nutriment and strength to the human system. ”

“ God has provided many different kinds of food to satisfy our bodily appetite. Although they are all adapted to the same end, viz., to the nourishment of the body, the difference in the composition and flavour adds much to man’s enjoyment. The human spirit, like the human body, craves a variety in its food, and God has satisfied that craving. The revelation of God in Christ (in other words, the Gospel) reveals a great variety of spiritual truths upon which the spiritual nature of man can feed. ”

“ In the same manner as bread and wine are the common daily food of the body, and as through them we receive nourishment and strength, so the body and blood of Christ, immolated and shed for us, are the continual aliment of our faith, which gives vigour to our souls, and is the substance of our spiritual life and salvation. ”

“ Their prickly nature suggests a type of hard-to-get-along-with Christians, and the kind of mental, moral and spiritual food that produces them. In with some of the true wheat, in established churchianity, as shown by verse 16, were to be gathered Christians of various degrees of development, each eating the kind of food corresponding to his Christian development, the wheat class assimilating the best of the Divine Word, and so on down to those who absorbed the poorest grade of spiritual provender, some of it food usually regarded as fit only for animals. ”

“ As in the Book of Opening the Mouth the words spoken by the Kher-ḥeb, or chief officiating priest, were believed to change the meat, and bread, and wine into divine substances, so in the Liturgy also the formula which was said over each element was supposed to change it into a divine and spiritual food, which was partaken of by the souls of the gods and of the dead. ”

“ Further, it is requisite for every one belonging to this world to sustain his temporal life by temporal food, and earthly drink. So, in like manner, spiritual meat and divine drink are a means to him who is baptized for sustaining his eternal life in God. ”

“ These early sages have always held that prevention is better and easier than cure of diseases, physical, mental or spiritual. Regular spiritual practices, performed daily, form habits, and spiritual habits cleanse the impurities of the mind which then becomes fit to reflect the highest spiritual truths by the light of which man witnesses the unity of all Nature, feels the ecstasy of the One Essence which pervades it and stands face to face with his Maker.
The next essential of harmonious human life is food. Most people of our day will say that food is rather the first essential of life. ”

“ If, then, some would oppose, saying that by milk is meant the first lessons—as it were, the first food—and that by meat is meant those spiritual cognitions to which they attain by raising themselves to knowledge, let them understand that, in saying that meat is solid food, and the flesh and blood of Jesus, they are brought by their own vainglorious wisdom to the true simplicity. For the blood is found to be an original product in man, and some have consequently ventured to call it the substance of the soul. ”

“ We believe that in the Lord's Supper God gives us really, that is, truly and efficaciously, whatever is represented by the Sacrament. With the signs we join the true profession and fruition of the thing by them offered to us; and so, that Bread and Wine which are given to us, become our spiritual nourishment, in that they make it in some manner visible to us that the Flesh of Christ is our food, and His Blood our drink. ”

“ The next petition of the Lord's Prayer is, "Give us this day our daily bread." By these words we ask for all things which are needful both for our souls and bodies: the body needs daily food to preserve it in life, and make it strong to do its work; the Soul also wants food, to nourish and increase the spiritual life; and render it more active in the service of God. The word of God, Prayer, religious teaching, all the services of our religion, are the food of the Soul ”

“ The Food of Life is handed to you under the appearances of bread, which appearances are miraculously preserved without their proper substance. There is no miracle so great as this in nature. Learn from all these considerations how well adorned with every virtue your soul ought to be when you approach the holy table. ”

“ What could better illustrate this Spirit of Life dwelling in men's bodies and making them temples of God than a rite which drew attention to the fact that nourishment of the body is necessary for the continuance of the manifestation of the Spirit? Bread, the staff of life, is in some form or other the daily food of all peoples. ”

“ This is not a temporal, natural life, which we have received through birth and which is nourished through the ordinary food and drink, but it is that new, spiritual life, which has been regenerated through the new birth in Holy Baptism, and which subsists by virtue of faith in the Lord Jesus and in love to God and our neighbor. But inasmuch as this life is yet weak and imperfect and constant growth is necessary, the Lord has instituted the Holy Supper as a spiritual means of nourishment, in order to strengthen the new spiritual life. ”

“ As to the foods we eat, it is assumed that certain kinds of food nourish certain properties worthy of cultivation, and that others retard our spiritual growth. For instance, we do not kill to eat. Such food would be held to nourish the animal body, at the expense of the spiritual body, in which the soul is said to be clothed on its departure from this physical envelope, besides laying the sin of blood-guiltiness upon the butcher. ”

“ Provided there is a demand for food in the form of true hunger.
Natural diet, deep rhythmic breathing with corresponding exercises awaken latent talents within us and rapid mental and spiritual unfoldment takes place. Inharmony, disease and pain are caused by living a life contrary to the laws of God and Nature. ”

“ All great spiritual Scriptures are full of the invitation not to test but to taste; not to examine but to eat. Their phrases are full of living water and heavenly bread, mysterious manna and dreadful wine. Worldliness and the polite society of the world has despised this instinct of eating, but religion has never despised it. ”

“ Moreover, the institution of a meal reminds us that faith and emotion do not always exist together. Times there are when the hunger and thirst of the soul are like the craving of a sharp appetite for food. But the wise man will not postpone his meal until such a keen desire returns, and the Christian will seek for the Bread of life, however his emotions may flag, and his soul cleave unto the dust. Silently and often unaware, as the substance of the body is renovated and restored by food, shall the inner man be strengthened and built up by that living Bread. ”

“ Thus must they honour the Lord with their substance, and, in token of their eating and drinking to his glory, must consecrate some of their meat and drink to his immediate service. Those that now, with a grateful charitable heart, deal out their bread to the hungry, and provide for the necessities of those that are destitute of daily food, and when they eat the fat and drink the sweet themselves send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared, offer unto God an acceptable meat-offering. ”

“ For the Lord embodies Himself even in meat and drink, as it is written in the gospel, He that eateth this bread shall live for ever, to give the soul rest unutterable, and fill it with spiritual cheer ”

“ Faith, when it hungereth after God's love and grace, always eateth and drinketh of Christ's Flesh and Blood. Christ hath not bound himself to bread and wine alone, but hath bound himself to the faith, that he will be in men." Works, vol. iv. p. 208. Charles Gordon took the same view of the visible "eating," as being a great assistance to the spiritual feeding, but not indispensable to it. ”

“ We eat and drink every day, and by that means our bodies grow to their full stature, and are then kept up in life, health, and vigour, though we ourselves know not how this is done, nor perhaps take any notice of it. So it is with this spiritual meat and drink, which God hath prepared for our souls. By eating and drinking frequently of it, we grow by degrees in grace, and in the "knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and still continue steadfast and active in the true faith and fear of God ”

“ Nor shall all thy Pythagorean and Shelleyan dietings on apple-parings, dried prunes, and crumbs of oatmeal cracker, ever fit thy body for heaven. Feed all things with food convenient for them—that is, if the food be procurable. The food of thy soul is light and space ”

“ We begin to understand why we should eat and drink to the glory of God. Provision is now being made for the bread we save to reach the hungry in distant parts of the earth. We can now prove that he who gives even a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose his reward. To-day, as truly as on the shores of Galilee, the great Master is saying, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." And if we enter whole-heartedly into this food conservation movement, we may expect the blessing of the Lord to rest so greatly upon the fragments saved that the wide world will be fed. ”

“ So that bread is a universal food, and seems to contain in it all the nutritive qualities of every other sort of food, all of which borrow their virtues from it; as the planets derive their light from the universal luminary, the sun. And this we may conceive to be the reason of the great virtue there is in bread, that, being the most common and ordinary food, every man might find in it wherewithal to support life, though he should have nothing else. In a word, whatever we eat or drink, ought to be looked upon as a miracle of divine wisdom and goodness. ”

“ I take no delight in food that perishes, nor in the pleasures of this life. What I desire is the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was born of the seed of David ”

“ Is there anything on this earth you could not dispense with, for the sake of the Gospel? There should not be.
Our bodies are organized to derive enjoyment from their proper use. There is enjoyment in eating when you are hungry, and in resting when you are fatigued, to the extent the body rightly requires; but if appetite is so gratified that your body, when you wake, is tormented with a raging fever, where is the pleasure in eating so much of this or that delicious food? Satisfying the appetite brings to an end the pleasure of eating ”

“ No compulsion is used in bringing men to a knowledge of God; yet, as fast as we open our hearts to the influences of righteousness, the faith that leads to life eternal will be given us of our Father."—Articles of Faith, v:16. Spiritual Symbolism of Eating.—"The idea of eating, as a metaphor for receiving spiritual benefit, was familiar to Christ's hearers, and was as readily understood as our expressions—'devouring a book,' or 'drinking in' instruction. ”

“ It may be further observed, in illustration of the uses effected by the holy supper, that the angels, who are present with man while he partakes of it, have no other perception of the bread and wine then taken, than what is spiritual: and hence the very expressions, bread, wine, body, flesh, and blood, as well as the act of eating and drinking, excite in their minds both the ideas and the affections of love, charity, and faith ”