matter and, should there be surplus, an increase of bodily substance.113 But, Thomas goes on to say, there is a crucial difference between bodily food and spiritual food. Bodily food has its effect, to restore lost flesh and increase its quantity, by being converted into the one fed. Spiritual food, on the contrary, is not converted into the one eating; the one eating is rather converted into it, for it acts upon him, so as to turn him into itself.114 The notion of being changed into the food one eats might seem odd, since that would be the contrary of what happens with all other food and drink. Were the food in question mere food, it would be impossible to speak this way, as Jesus recognizes when he says: "the flesh profits nothing" (Jn 6:64), that is, as the Church Fathers interpret the saying, mere flesh is lifeless, it cannot bring life to the spirit.115 But if the food is the life-giving flesh of the living Son of God, a believer's contact with it leads to life, renewal, deification-a truth central to the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria,116 who is the first patristic auctoritas Thomas cites in the important question on the effects of the Eucharist:

The life-giving Word of God, uniting himself to his own flesh, made it life-giving. It was becoming, therefore, that he be in a certain way united to our bodies through his sacred flesh and precious blood, which we receive in a life-giving blessing in bread and wine.117

As Mersch explains:

Union with food is effected in a mysterious exchange of life, in an assimilation by which one becomes the other. But in the Eucharist, the more vital of the two is the bread we receive, the "bread of life." This bread consumes and changes into itself the one who eats it.118

113 In IV Sent. d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1. To these physical effects, Thomas likens the sacramental effects of an increase in "spiritual quantity" (where "quantity" means the extent of active power) by the strengthening of the virtues, and a restoration of wholeness through the forgiveness of venial sin or the repairing of any sort of defect.114 Aquinas says this many times; in the Sentences commentary alone, at In IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3, qa. 1; In IV Sent., d. 9, a. 2, qa. 4; In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1. Cf. Emery, "Ecclesial Fruit," 47-48.115 Typical of the patristic exegesis of John 6:64 is the interpretation of Augustine's that Thomas quotes in ST III, q. 75, a. 1, ad 1.116 See Mersch, The Whole Christ, 337-58.117 ST III, q. 79, a. 1; Cyril is commenting on Luke 22:19.118 Mersch, Theology of the Mystical Body, 590-91.

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Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy: From Self-Alienation to Gift of Self

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