Before I surrendered to my highest calling (stay-at-home mom!), I worked as a nutritional therapist and, briefly, an assistant instructor of holistic nutrition. The purpose of my job was to help people improve their health through dietary change—and yet, the individual results still amazed me. People really did change, often visibly, as a result of what they ate. Their bodies shed pain and pounds and complex medical conditions. I saw, first-hand, the transformative power of food as medicine.

And because I was a nutritionist, I knew such changes were the result of a basic biological shift. The food we eat is digested, assimilated, and reconstituted into nutrients, absorbed into the cells. A change in food causes a change at the cellular level—in the very composition of the cells that make up the many living organs and tissues of the body. Healthy bodies are made of healthy cells. Healthy cells are made of healthy nutrients. And healthy nutrients are found in wholesome foods.

To give one’s body the best chance at health, we must eat the foods that nourish and fortify it—particularly the foods that God, Himself, designed and gave us to eat—and in helpful amounts. To continue to intentionally consume such foods, is to trigger many small, hidden changes within the cells. Over time, these changes compile into large, noticeable improvements in our health.

And these same concepts, I do believe, apply in a strikingly similar way to our Divine food—the Eucharist.

For just as God gives us food to eat for the good of our body, so He also gives us food to eat for the good of our soul.

Our soul’s food is the Eucharist: the holy and living Bread of Life that is Jesus, Himself. At the Last Supper, Jesus commanded all of His disciples (that includes us!) to “take and eat” of His Body and Blood. All three synoptic Gospels record this pivotal event and teaching almost identically, and John's Gospel confirms it in the most beautiful way, as I will detail in a moment:

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. (Mark 14)

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. (Luke 22)

If we are His disciples, we too must eat of the Bread of Life for the health of our soul. According to Jesus, Himself, to do so is to partake in His sacrifice for the world, and the forgiveness of sins—and He asked them to continue to take this food “in remembrance” of Him. And, since the very first days of the Church, Christians have done exactly this: gathered to reenact what Jesus asked of them in the Last Supper, by way of the practice of the Mass.

At the Mass, the priest unlocks the miracle in which Jesus makes Himself fully present to us. He uses the exact words of Christ from the Last Supper, and the simple, earthly accidents of bread and wine are transubstantiated, to become His living Body and Blood.

For many today, this seems implausible, if not ridiculous. This is understandable—we are subject to the limits of human logic and doubt. But Jesus knowingly and specifically addresses our exact doubts on this matter, and this is where John’s Gospel comes in to compliment the 3 other Gospel accounts:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” (John 6:47-58 )

To believe that Jesus chooses to make Himself present in the food of the Eucharist asks of us a big leap of trust and faith. It is a great mystery. But as we accept the miracle of God choosing to come down from heaven, in the ordinary human form of Jesus, to allow Himself to be crucified for our good—so, too, can we accept the miracle of God choosing to come down from heaven, in the ordinary form of Bread and Wine, to allow Himself to be consumed for our good. Eating has always been an intimate, nourishing act. Bread and wine have been staple foods. Is it so hard to believe, then, that Jesus would choose to hide Himself in such things, that He might draw close to—and us to Him—in the least daunting, most familiar way possible? For did He not promise to remain here with us: “and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20)? In the Eucharist He left us the greatest gift: His full and loving presence, to get us through to the day when we might be enfolded forever within it.

If Jesus truly exists within the Eucharist—which He does—than the consecrated Bread and Wine are the holiest, most life-giving, medicinal foods on this earth. If the ordinary food we consume nourishes us in ordinary ways that improve our health, both immediately, and certainly over time, than would not the extraordinary food of the Eucharist nourish and improve our health in extraordinary ways?

And as a former nutritionist, I have to think that the Eucharist—that most powerful, Divine food—changes us, quite literally, from the inside, out. Perhaps we cannot measure these benefits, as precisely, but surely we cannot remain unchanged when we reverently receive Jesus within our very body. For eating is a profoundly intimate act, and to take in His Body and Blood through the Eucharist is the greatest attempt we can make at drawing near to Him. And I can’t believe that Jesus would let this go unnoticed, or unrewarded. Would He miss these opportunities to distribute His Divine nutrients to our areas of most need? Would He fail to repair, fortify, and transform our heart, our will, our soul? No. He would not leave us broken, spiritually parched and starving. He would heal us, feeding—like he did the 5000, in the most miraculous and unlikely of ways, both physically and spiritually. Because He keeps His promises.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35)

Read more about the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist per these 5 famous Eucharistic miracles, and these more recent Eucharistic miracles.

The Church teaches that, “the Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist” (CCC 1377). We can’t know exactly when Jesus ceases to be present in the consecrated Host and Blood after we consume Him. He does remove His presence sometime after the Host has begun to dissolve within us. Many saints have advised at least 15 minutes of prayerful thanks and adoration to honor that brief, sacred time in which Jesus, Himself, is present within us.

To partake in the Eucharist, one must be a practicing Catholic, free of mortal sin, and having observed at least one hour of fasting prior.