Yes - He was telling them that His body and blood is spiritual food - a Sacrament - not physical food
You are correct but also wrong. Our Holy Communion is physical food because Jesus Christ said it Himself. But you are correct in the sense that His Flesh is also spiritual because it is only by the Holy Spirit that Transubstantiation is possible.
53 … "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,
54 he who
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:53-56
Since we believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eurcharist we are actually eating the flesh & blood of Jesus Christ. However, it is only by the Holy Spirit that this could be possible. That should explain John 6:66. The disciples who walked away knew what Jesus was talking about. He was actually talking about
eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood; just not in the way they thought. And for that reason, Jesus did not stop them to tell them that it was merely symbolic because it wasn’t symbolic; and it wasn’t
only spiritual either.
The word that was used for “eat” actually means “to munch on” or “to masticate” on something that is meat.
We also know that just eating the “flesh” of Jesus Christ without the Spirit is merely “dead” flesh and not “real food” as Jesus put it in the Gospel. That is one of the explanations for this following scripture verse. I added my little comment in there also. If you read it just as it is with my comment it might make you understand a little better what He actually meant.
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the (dead)
flesh (alone without the spirit) is of no avail;
the words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life.
We also interpret this verse in the following way; that our own human understanding without the Holy Spirit & Words of Jesus Christ, is not enough to comprehend what Jesus meant.
When we eat something, it becomes part of us. When we eat the flesh of Jesus Christ, the opposite happens; we become more like Jesus Christ if we are freely and correctly disposed to the Grace of the Sacrament.
Here’s another way that we know it is not merely a “spiritual” food. The Manna in the OT was actually
food that they ate. But it did not make them have eternal life. The manna was merely a “type” of the Eucharist. I hope we all realize that a “type” can never supersede the real deal in the NT, in this case the Eucharist. So on top of
really eating food that merely sustained them physically, we can now
really eat real food that will sustain our souls eternally. This is only possible by consecration done by a validly ordained Catholic Priest. Jesus was with the Apostles at the Last Supper when He instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. No one else was there but Jesus and His 12 Apostles. The Catholic Church has
Apostolic Succession.
Another way that you can say that it is not merely a “spiritual” food is because one does make a “Spiritual Communion” when one is not able to partake in Holy Communion either because of mortal sin or because one did not fast the appropriate time before going to Mass. If the Eucharist was merely Spiritual, then why bother partaking in the Eucharist at all? We could just make Spiritual Communions every day whether we are in sin or not.
I make a
Spritual Communion when I watch the Daily Mass on EWTN.
Cont…
And there are no coincidences in the Bible. I don’t even believe in coincidences at all. I only believe in “God-incidences.” 