The symbols of bread and wine are not only symbols of the broken flesh and spilt blood of the Redeemer but are also symbols of sustenance. By partaking worthily of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper we not only covenant to remember the Savior’s sacrifice but also demonstrate our yearning-“hungering and thirsting” for spiritual sustenance.
“I have always looked upon this blessed privilege as the means of spiritual growth,” Elder Melvin J. Ballard taught, “and there is none other quite so fruitful in the achievement of that end as the partaking, worthily, of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. We eat food to stimulate our physical bodies. Without the partaking of food we would become weak and sickly, and fail physically. It is just as necessary, for our spiritual body, that we should partake of this sacrament, and by it obtain spiritual food for our souls....”
“We must come, however, to the sacrament table hungry. If we should repair to a banquet where the finest of earth’s providing may be had, without hunger, without appetite, the food would not be tempting, nor do us any good. If we repair to the sacrament table, we must come hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for spiritual growth. (“The Sacramental Covenant,” Improvement Era, October 1919, pp. 1025-31.)