Why do we call the Holy Eucharist the “Bread of Angels,” even though the Holy Angels, being pure spirits, cannot partake of It? Our Lord’s spiritual Soul and Divinity have immateriality in common with the Angels, but His Body and Blood, being material, are realities that have nothing in common with the Angelic nature. Angels do not eat or drink as we do, material food and libation being not only unnecessary to them but actually incompatible with their natures. As Saint Raphael the Archangel — who appeared for the duration of his mission in the form of a man — told the elder and younger Tobias, “I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you: but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men” (Tobias 12:19).
One answer I have heard to this question is that the Angels envy us — it is the only time they do so — when we receive Holy Communion; they wish they could join us at the altar rail. But that answer seems to be more poetic than properly theological. It is not fitting that the Holy Angels would wish for something that is incompatible with the nature God gave them. Moreover, they are in eternal beatitude and cannot possibly suffer from the deprivation of any good they desire for themselves.
To answer the proposed question, I will begin with the Old-Testament reference that gives us this expression in the first place.
In Psalm 77:25 we read, “Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance” (Panem angelorum manducavit homo; cibaria misit eis in abundantia). I will not pretend that Saint Thomas was the first to use the passage in this sense — I would assume he was certainly not — but, to cite a well-known medieval use of the term, Aquinas uses it in two of his celebrated hymns for the Divine Office of Corpus Christi: first in the Lauda Sion, where the eleventh and penultimate stanza begins, Ecce Panis Angelorum (Behold the Bread of Angels!); and second, in a more paraphrased way, in the Sacris Solemniis, whose sixth and penultimate verse begins, Panis angelicus / fit panis hominum (“Angelic bread / becomes the bread of men”). Being acutely aware of the allegorical sense of the Old Testament, Saint Thomas was keen to point out these types and figures, though he was by no means original in so doing.
From the Dominican Doctor called “Angelic,” we turn now to a Jesuit Doctor styled “the Prince of Apologists.” In his treatment of Psalm 77 from the Commentary on the Book of Psalms (pp. 190-191), Saint Robert Bellarmine considers verses 18 to 29 as one unit or block. He writes (and I’m skipping a lot that he says of other verses in that “block”; emphasis mine),
The Prophet unites the miracles of the bread from heaven and the water from the rock; they being types of Christ’s Passion, and of the Eucharist, as the Lord himself explains in John 6, and the apostle in 1 Cor. 10. … Now the real bread from heaven was not the manna that fell from the sky, but the flesh of Christ that comes from the heaven of heavens, and gives life to the world. The manna, however, was a type of this true bread, and the Prophet has that in view when he said, in the beginning of the Psalm, that he was about to speak in parables and propositions. Not to explain the passage. … The manna is called the bread of angels, being made and produced by them. The word manna is derived from two Hebrew words, that mean, “What is it?” which the Jews said when first they saw it.
The saintly Cardinal Bellarmine’s explanation of why the manna was called the bread of angels is itself fascinating. He ascribes to them a role in the efficient causality of the manna: they “made and produced” it. This is itself a sufficient reason to use this name, “bread of angels” for the Blessed Sacrament: the simple fact that the manna is a type of the Eucharist, which typology Saint Robert points out is made explicit both by Our Lord Himself in John 6 and by Saint Paul in I Cor. 10.
But is there any more we can say beyond this justification based upon Old-Testament typology? Is there anything that justifies this term strictly within the economy of the Incarnation, which was not fully revealed to men or executed until the New Testament? Yes, I believe there is. But before I explain that, I have a confession to make. I need to come clean and admit something I’ve been keeping close to the vest. I’m actually a Franciscan — in part, anyway. No, I’m not a Friar Minor, but I do hold to the so-called “Franciscan thesis” on one narrow point: Would the Incarnation have happened had not sin happened? Saint Thomas (and others before and after him) say No. Blessed Duns Scotus (and others before and after him) say Yes. On this point, Father Leonard Feeney and my mentor Brother Francis were both “Franciscans,” and so am I.
Having gotten that off my chest, I proceed. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, absolutely holds the primacy in all things, being predestined from all eternity as the most perfect means of glorifying the Blessed Trinity. Moreover, all of the elect — both angels and men — have been predestined in Him as members of His Mystical Body. And all this is entirely prescinding from sin (cf. Eph. 1:3-6), which God foreknew and prepared the remedy for by making Our Lord not only our Mystical Head, King, and Savior, but also our Victim-Priest and Redeemer.
Part of this Franciscan (or Scotist) thesis is that the test of the angels — what separated the Holy Angels from the demons — was the Incarnation itself. Prior to that test, all the angels, though created in sanctifying grace, were not in Heaven; they did not enjoy the Beatific Vision. They were in grace but not glory. God presented to them His plan that was already foreordained, namely, that the Eternal Logos will become Man of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and that they two will become King and Queen of all creation, including of the nine choirs. The great Light-Bearer, Lucifer, uttered his infamous non serviam, and he and his followers fell; whereas Saint Michael and the other good Angels consented to the divine plan, fully cognizant that they would adore the Man-God who possessed a nature inferior to their own, and venerate as their Queen a woman who was a sheer creature of that same nature.
This was their test: the Incarnation, which was destined to happen with or without their sin, with or without the sin of man. The Holy Angels adored — and they still adore — the Incarnate Logos. That great Mystery of the Incarnation continues in the Church’s sacramental economy, most especially in the Holy Eucharist, which is the Incarnate Logos Himself: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The Blessed Spirits adore Him who is their Savior, even though He is not their Redeemer.
They adored the divine plan of the Incarnate Word when it was revealed to them; they adored Him when He walked this earth, and they still adore Him in the Sacrament of the Altar.
If an unclean spirit could, through the lips of a possessed man, tell Jesus, “I know who thou art, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), cannot the Holy Angels lovingly and adoringly say the same to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Yes, they can! The angelic knowledge is superior to ours. Though they are not material, they know material things — and better than we do. They know things as forms “in the Word,” and they know things also “in themselves” by a direct intellectual vision that does not require the laborious process we call discursive reasoning. All that said, they “see” the Reality of the Holy Eucharist better than we possibly can by faith in this vale of tears. They not only see, they adore. As they consented to the eternal decree of the Incarnation, they continue to adore the Eucharistic multi-location of this Mystery, which was and remains the cause their salvation.
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In the fourth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, we read the beautiful episode of Our Lord’s encounter with the Woman at the Well (known to posterity as Saint Photina). Arriving in Samaria on His way to Galilee, Jesus had sent the Apostles to purchase food while He, tired and hungry, remained at Jacob’s well. When Photina came along at the hottest time of the day to draw water, He struck up a conversation with her — one that would have eternal consequences for this Samaritan. The Apostles came back to find the Master in her company and were surprised, but dared not ask anything. When they encouraged Him to eat, He replied, “I have meat to eat, which you know not,” which further mystified the Apostles, to whom Jesus replied, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work” (John 4:31-34). (Two chapters later in this same Gospel — John 6:56 — Jesus will say, “For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.”)
Recall that the Archangel Raphael told the senior and junior Tobias that, “I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men.” While the commentator Calmet says that this is a reference to the Beatific Vision, which this pure spirit enjoys while men in this vale of tears cannot, it is not beyond the pale to identify the sustenance of the Archangel with that “meat” Our Lord spoke of in John 4: Doing the will of the Father regarding a very specific mission that comes from the secret counsels of the Holy Trinity — hence the meat that cannot be seen by men like Tobias and the Apostles know it not.
When the secret counsels of the Holy Trinity regarding the Incarnation and its consequent economy of salvation were made known to the angelic choirs, the good rejoiced while the evil rebelled. In a manner befitting their angelic nature, the Blessed Spirits fed on this Bread of Angels. Thus, they partook of their salvific bread (their supernatural meat or sustenance) in accepting and adoring the Body of God and all that flows from that amazing dispensation. Then, in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), the divine plan was realized and revealed to men, and that same Body of God, having already been “angelic bread,” becomes — to use Saint Thomas’ exquisite poetry — the “bread of men” (Panis angelicus / fit panis hominum).
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I would like to end this highly speculative piece with an eminently practical suggestion. Next time you are before the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist — either at Mass, for Adoration, or making a visit to Him in the Tabernacle — invite your guardian angel to adore Him with you. If you are like me, you may have asked him to do things for you that are not God’s will and he could not comply with your request. In asking him to join you in adoring, thanking, petitioning, making reparation to, and loving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, you are guaranteed that he will most happily accommodate you, and you will also certainly be of one mind with the blessed guardian that God has chosen for you. He just might, as a result of this charity on your part, help you to grow in your love and adoration of the Bread of Angels.
