Aquinas, Erie Restaurants, the Eucharist and Sustenance for the Journey
Erie and the Eucharist
The Erie area has many restaurants on both the east and west sides. When I first began at St. Mark’s Seminary and Gannon University in 2018, I often thought that if someone went to a different restaurant every day in the Erie area, it would take a long time to visit every place.
When I ask people from Erie, “Where is your favorite place to go out to eat?” the response is often, “I have to think about that for a second.” When I Googled how many restaurants are in the Erie area, the Allmenus website displayed over 300 restaurants.
Try for a second and visualize the 300+ restaurants within the Erie area. Then, think of how many people go to eat and are nourished to strengthen their bodies. Then, think of how many people, after being nourished, go on to their differing journeys.
For Aquinas, the great metaphor for the Eucharist is sustenance or food for the journey.
In a similar way as food sustains a person’s body, Aquinas believed that the Eucharist sustains a person’s soul by providing spiritual nourishment. Aquinas wrote that the Eucharist “does for the spiritual life all that (corporeal) food does for the bodily life, namely, by sustaining, giving increase, restoring, and giving delight.”
In reflecting on John Chapter 6, The Last Supper Discourse, Aquinas wrote about the difference between food that sustains the body (corporeal food) and food that sustains the soul (spiritual food). Aquinas saw corporeal food that sustains the body as perishable because it is eventually converted into the body. However, the spiritual food of the Eucharist that sustains the soul is not perishable. The spiritual food of the Eucharist does not change into the person’s soul; instead, the soul converts into the spiritual food. For Aquinas, the Eucharist helps in transforming us into Christ.
Like people who go to restaurants in Erie to be fed and nourished, let us approach the Eucharist with a hungry heart that asks God to spiritually nourish us.
Jesus nourishes us with Himself to strengthen and sustain us for the missions He calls us to serve.
+ Fr. Luke Daghir