Hunger is an aversive sensation that Saint Augustine likens to an illness, with food and drink serving as the medicines that temporarily treat this very human condition. Yet, as he observes, food does not cure hunger; it merely quiets its symptoms for a time. Inevitably, several hours after a satisfying meal, hunger returns and we begin thinking about procuring our next meal. This cycle is essential to our physical survival, and a total loss of appetite—whether through illness or age—can be life‑threatening.
If our bodies experience hunger as a summons to seek life‑sustaining nourishment, there is a corresponding spiritual hunger that urges us toward the health of the soul. And just as the loss of physical appetite signals danger, so too a diminished appetite for spiritual nourishment leads to interior weakness and, eventually, spiritual death. But unlike physical hunger, which is difficult to ignore, spiritual hunger is often subtle and easily misinterpreted. Failing to recognize it for what it is, we may neglect the very nourishment our souls require.
Indeed, one of the roots of gluttony is precisely this misdirected attempt to silence an unrecognized spiritual hunger with what can never satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart. And so Jesus warns His disciples: Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life. It is therefore not coincidental that the Eucharist is both physical and spiritual—nourishment for the body and the soul. It reminds us that just as our bodies remain dependent on earthly food, so our spiritual well‑being remains dependent on the heavenly food God provides.
Yet the Eucharist is not merely “spiritual nourishment” in the abstract. The consecrated bread and wine give life to the soul precisely because they communicate the living person of Christ. It is our loving union with Him—our incorporation into His life—that constitutes this nourishment. Augustine’s analogy of hunger as illness and food as medicine applies here as well: The Eucharist is the divine medicine that must be taken again and again. But even this analogy is incomplete.
For, as Saint Bernard teaches, physical food removes hunger, but spiritual food awakens a deeper hunger. When the soul tastes the sweetness of the Lord, God enlarges its capacity to receive more of His life‑giving love. However, this is not an experience of perpetual dissatisfaction or unfulfilled longing. Rather, Bernard describes the paradox of holy desire: Avidly longing, they are always full. What they have they desire; but satiety is not loathsome. Nor does hunger torment, and with appetite they continually eat; and eating, they long for more. According to Bernard, therefore, divine nourishment satisfies even as it expands the heart in its capacity to receive God’s love.
This sheds light on the Church’s insistence on frequent reception of the Eucharist. Unlike physical food, whose nutrients are depleted and must be replaced, the Eucharist is not received to replenish exhausted spiritual reserves. Instead, each reception should deepen our spiritual hunger—stretching the heart, widening its capacity, and drawing us ever more fully into the transforming love and presence of God. In this way, we grow into the mystery we receive, becoming what God is by grace through our incorporation into Christ, the True Bread come down from heaven, in whose very life we are destined to share. Only in the Eucharist do we taste the one food that both satisfies and completes us, the only “medicine” that heals the soul’s deepest hunger. For Christ Himself is the final and eternal cure for the incompleteness we carry until that glorious day when we finally rest in God.