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In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, St. Paul speaks about three parts of the human personality: “May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(NAB, emphasis added). In other translations, this tripartite division of spirit, soul, and body is rendered as body, mind, and spirit. These are the three major areas in which human beings can suffer from wounds, and the three dimensions of the human personality where God’s healing action can take place. ……
….When we thus examine the realm of the human spirit (soul), we can conclude there are not three but four types of disorders that require, correspondingly, four types of healing: physical; emotional; intrinsic spiritual healing, which is healing from sin; and extrinsic spiritual healing, in which demonic force are dispelled. Moreover, as we shall show, all four types of healing are eminently available through the Eucharist. Clearly it follows that a smorgasbord of healing benefits is available to us through the healing power of the Eucharist.
“The Healing Power of the Eucharist” Father John Hampsch, C.M.F.
The real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist is great mystery, and we should strive to cultivate our faith in this mystery, which is a basic doctrine of our Catholic faith. Scripture makes numerous references to the fact that Jesus is truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist under the outward appearances of bread and wine. As we have already seen, the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John is Jesus’ most explicit and unambiguous teaching on his real presence in the Eucharist. The other Gospel writers all echo John’s account of Jesus’ teaching. When recounting the events at the Last Supper, they all unequivocally affirm that Jesus’ words were, “This is my body … ” and “This is my blood … ” (emphasis added).
Likewise, St. Paul also makes several references to belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist in the tenth and eleventh chapters of his First Letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 10:16, (NAB) he writes: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” Later, in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29, (NAB) he admonishes the Christians of Corinth with these words: “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself”
Clearly, Jesus does not speak about a symbolic presence or merely a memorial presence in Scripture, but a real, physical presence. St. Gregory Nazianzen, a great theologian who lived in the fourth century, once wrote that the Eucharist “is the food that hungers to be eaten.” It is only fitting that reciprocally we should hunger after that food. Without truly believing in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, how can anyone hunger or earnestly seek after the bread from heaven? Without faith in Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, how can there be any faith in his healing power in the Eucharist? And without any measure of fervor or devotion, how can anyone expect any kind of healing? Regrettably, many people do not even think of healing as available through the Eucharist, or know how Communion can be a source of healing for them.
“The Healing Power of the Eucharist” Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
St. Anthony Claret, the founder of the Claretian Congregation, to which I belong, was a great saint. He wrote 144 books, preached twenty-five thousand sermons, and was confessor to Queen Isabella II of Spain. He was archbishop of Santiago, Cuba, and he predicted the advent of communism. He worked many miracles and accomplished more work than any twenty persons could be expected to accomplish in a lifetime. He spent many hours before the tabernacle in prayer late into the night, in preparation for his Mass and for his reception of Communion the following morning.
Because of his remarkable love for the Eucharist, for the last nine years of his life St. Anthony was given the mystical privilege of miraculously retaining the sacred host in his breast, uncorrupted and undissolved, from one Communion to the next, in honor of the nine months Mary had Jesus within her during her pregnancy. He was a walking tabernacle, a fact that his spiritual director revealed only after St. Anthony’s death. When St, Anthony Claret attended the First Vatican Council in 1870 as an archbishop, a bishop from Canada miraculously perceived the real presence of Christ in him and felt compelled to genuflect before him-not to adore St. Anthony Claret, but to adore the eucharistic presence of Christ within him. The power of this eucharistic presence within him was manifest in many ways and on many occasions.
When people have an extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist, God does some extraordinary things in their lives. Although they may never be in the spotlight of admiration from those around them, they lead lives of hidden sanctity, and they exert a powerful spiritual influence on others. The sanctifying power that God releases in them does not stay within them; it moves out and spreads to others. The lives of many saints testify to this.
“The Healing Power of the Eucharist” by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F.
This tradition of love and devotion began with the early fathers of the Church. In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom, a gifted preacher and patriarch of Constantinople, clearly grasped the profound meaning of the Eucharist, as evidenced by the words in one of his sermons: “To that Lord on whom the angels even dare not fix their eyes, to him we unite ourselves and we are made one body and one flesh.”
St Cyril of Alexandria, the champion of the doctrine of Mary’s divine maternity and the mystery of the Incarnation at the Council of Ephesus in the fifth century, also elucidated the meaning of this mystery when he noted that “as two pieces of melted wax unite together, so a soul that receives Communion is so thoroughly united to Jesus that Jesus remains in it, and it in Jesus. “
Later in history, St. Thomas Aquinas, the famous Dominican theologian of the thirteenth century whose treatises have left their imprint on theology to this day, described the Eucharist as “a sacrament of love and a token of the greatest love that God could give us.”
St. Teresa of Avila was a Carmelite nun in the sixteenth century who led a major reform among the Carmelites of her day and who founded many monasteries throughout Spain. Because of her extensive writings on spiritual and mystical subjects, she was proclaimed a “Doctor of the Church” in 1970-the first woman to be honored by the Church with this title.
Regarding her devotion to the Eucharist, St. Teresa wrote that she could never doubt God’s presence in the Eucharist, and that she chuckled to herself when she heard people saying the wished they had been around when Jesus was walking on the earth. “I know that I possess you in the Blessed Sacrament as truly as people did then, and I wonder what more anyone could possibly want.”
St. Teresa also marveled at God’s foresight in coming to us under the appearance of bread and wine: “How could I, a poor sinner who has offended you so often, dare to approach you, O Lord, if I beheld you in all your majesty? Under the appearance of bread, however, it is easy to approach you…. If you were not hidden, O Lord, who would dare approach you with such coldness, so unworthily, and with so many imperfections?”
The Healing Power of the Eucharist by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
St. Augustine, the great saint who lived in the fourth century and was converted from his worldly ways through the unceasing prayers of his mother, St. Monica, once launched a spiritual teaching with what today’s advertising moguls would call a “teaser.” He said, “There is only one thing God does not know. He does not know how he could give us a gift greater than himself-–and he has given us the gift of himself as bread in the Holy Eucharist.” ….
Communion involves a physical, spiritual, and emotional intimacy in which God, who the heavens cannot contain, is totally contained within our heart and our body. This is a supernal marvel that only God could design. It is as if God’s limitless love has, as it were, exhausted his own divine ingenuity in designing a way to get eminently close to his beloved human creatures, whom he has fashioned in his own image and likeness.
The Healing Power of the Eucharist by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
Their conversation had come to a crossroads. Who was greater:
Moses or Jesus? Jesus did not avoid the issue but bluntly described himself as the Bread of Life, through whom a person may obtain eternal life and spiritual sustenance while still or earth: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35. NAB). As St. Augustine has observed, Jesus spoke of himself in a way that made him seem superior to Moses, for Moses never dared to say he would give food which would never perish but would endure to eternal life. Moses promised plenty of food for the belly, St. Augustine said, but the food Moses promised was food that perishes. Jesus, on the other hand, promised food which never perishes but which endures forever.
Now Jesus challenged the crowd even further. “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:47-51, NAB).
The Healing Power of the Eucharist by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
…Just as God provides us with food to sustain our physical or natural life, even more importantly he provides us with food to sustain our spiritual life. In John 6:27 Jesus says, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” This remark is significant. Like so many of Jesus’ remarks, it is an enigmatic phrase pregnant with deep theological content. The spiritual food that Jesus gives us will prevent us from ever growing hungry. We will never be spiritually undernourished: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn 6:35). When we resolve to cooperate fully with God’s design and allow the power of the Eucharist to be released in our lives, remarkable things can happen.
The Healing Power of the Eucharist by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains all
that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.
St. Teresa of Avila
God’s grace is available to us when we participate in the eucharistic liturgy as part of the Mystical Body of Christ, but especially when we, as part of the Mystical Body, are nourished by Christ’s physical body in the premiere sacrament of the Eucharist. The eucharistic presence of Jesus has the power to transform us: there is tremendous potential energy waiting to be released in the consecrated host and the consecrated wine the we receive in Communion. God himself initiated this source of grace and extends to us a pleading invitation to receive this sacrament. Subsequent sanctifying grace, which is holiness-making grace, will then flow into our souls by the special mutual union called Communion that occurs when we receive the Eucharist.
It is important for us to realize that the union that occurs in the Eucharist is a special, mutual union. This is why we commonly refer to the receiving of the Eucharist as Communion, meaning union with. Jesus is speaking to us about the mutuality of this union when he says, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:56, RSV).
The Healing Power of the Eucharist by Father John Hampsch, C.M.F. - Servant Books
