According to Catholics (and Mark 7:19) what happens to Jesus' flesh after it is ingested?

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Unlike perishable food that sustains the body, Christ's body in the Eucharist cannot be broken down and assimilated because His glorified body is incapable of harm.

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes (Summa Theologica III q. 77 a. 7 co.):

it cannot be said that Christ's true body is broken because it is

  1. incorruptible and impassible

  2. entire under every part, as was shown above (q. 76 a. 3), which is contrary to the nature of a thing broken.

cf. this article on Guitmund of Aversa vs. Thomas Aquinas on the question of whether Christ's body in the Eucharist can be chewed (atteri), from The Thomist


After digestion has corrupted the sacramental species, Christ's body and blood cease to be under this sacrament.

Summa Theologica III q. 77 a. 4 co.:

if the change [of the sacramental species] be so great that the substance of the bread or wine would have been corrupted*, then Christ's body and blood do not remain under this sacrament; and this either on the part of the qualities, as when the color, savor, and other qualities of the bread and wine are so altered as to be incompatible with the nature of bread or of wine; or else on the part of the quantity, as, for instance, if the bread be reduced to fine particles, or the wine divided into such tiny drops that the species of bread or wine no longer remain.
*[had such a change been done to the bread and wine before consecration]


cf. this answer, which addresses whether the sacramental species can nourish.

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