When we eat, our bodies break down the food and get from it both energy and materials for building and repairing the body. The process is similar on a symbolic level in the Bible. Food represents the desire for good and the insight that comes from that desire for good – goodness and understanding that come from the Lord. But to put them to use we have to take them in and make them our own – which is spiritual eating.

3635. In the human body there are two organs which are the mainsprings of its entire movement, and also of every action and external or purely physical sensation - the heart and the lungs. These two so correspond to the Grand Man or Lord's heaven that celestial angels there constitute one kingdom, and spiritual angels the other, for the Lord's kingdom is celestial and spiritual. The celestial kingdom consists of those who are governed by love to the Lord, the spiritual kingdom of those who are governed by charity towards the neighbour, 2088, 2669, 2715, 2718, 3235, 3246. The heart and its kingdom in man corresponds to celestial angels, the lungs and their kingdom to spiritual ones. Also the angels flow into things belonging to the heart and lungs, so much so that these things receive their being and are kept in being by means of that influx from them. But the correspondence of heart and lungs with the Grand Man will in the Lord's Divine mercy be presented as a separate subject.