Four Ways to Stymie Grace

In 1 Thessalonians 5:19 St. Paul reminds us, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Jesus does not want his spirit to be quenched but to spread: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing” (Lk 12:49). Jesus wants this spiritual energy – this fire of love – to be activated and enkindled in us. Unfortunately, we can quench this spark of grace before it produces the effect God intends.

This is particularly true when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Before explaining how we can fully experience the awesome power of grace in this sacrament, it may be helpful to examine the ways we inhibit the release of God’s power in our lives. Needless to say, because of our sinful nature, we often unwittingly erect barriers to God’s working in us and through us. He wants to cast his fire of love over the earth, but we often provide only fuel dampened with worldliness and sin.

There are four principal ways in which we can stymie the flow of grace that is available to use in the Eucharist. [This is a presentation of the first way and the other three will follow in subsequent articles].

Limited Devotion to the Eucharist

First, we can limit God’s grace from working in us by receiving Communion with limited fervor, devotion, or love. It is so easy for apathy, lethargy, or routine to characterize our sacramental life. Yet, Holy Communion should be for us a fire that enkindles love, devotion, and spiritual joy in our hearts.

Jesus tells us to hunger after the bread he gives us (Jn 6:27), which is his very flesh for the life of the world (v .51). Hunger implies a yearning, and there certainly is nothing apathetic about that! Indeed, a person who is really starving cannot thing about anything except food. We should have this same yearning within us, but unfortunately this longing is frequently missing when we receive Communion. As a result, our reception of the Eucharist often ends up being hardly more than a religious exercise that we perform dutifully rather than devotionally.

Essentially, it is a question of quality. We inhibit the action of God’s grace in us because the quality of our fervor, devotion, or love is simply not up to par. But this was not always the case. In the early Church there was tremendous fervor because there was tremendous faith. In acts 2:42, St. Luke tells us that the early Christians “devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers” (NAB, emphasis added). The word “devoted” implies a fervent faith! Galatians 5:6 (NAB) tells us what matters is “faith working through love.” As we have already seen, love of the Eucharist is based on faith in the Eucharist. Today our faith is extremely weak. Even today's strongest Christians, who think they have great faith, have much less faith than that which prevailed in the early Church when miracles were happening continually. Because people in the early Church expected miracles at Mass on Sunday, they saw miracles when they attended Mass – especially healing miracles.

For the first eight centuries in the history of the Church, faith was at the high pitch. Charisms were routinely being manifested, especially in the post-Communion period of the Mass. St. Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, witnessed these charisms, or extraordinary powers, such as healing, given to Christians by the Holy Spirit for the good of the Church. In fact, during one Mass he saw seventy-three people cured instantly of serious illnesses. He knew then and there that the charisms were not just meant for the apostolic times of the first century.

As a result, St. Augustine changed his theology to correspond more directly to sacred Scripture. He realized that, just as healing had been an integral part of Jesus’ ministry, healing should also be a part of his own ministry. He also realized that Jesus’ power could exert its effect on everyone who touched him.

In Luke 8:43-48, we read about a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. She went from doctor to doctor seeking a cure, spending all her money to no avail. No one could heal her (v. 43). One day, when Jesus was besieged by a crowd, this woman managed to get close enough to Jesus to touch his cloak. Immediately, her bleeding stopped. Jesus turned and asked, “Who touched me? Someone has touched me; for I know that power has gone out from me” (v. 46). Fearfully and sheepishly, the woman stepped forward and admitted she was the one who had touched Jesus. She explained to the crowd why she had touched him in order to be healed. And she was. Jesus told her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you, go in peace.”

St. Augustine knew that Jesus’ healing power was available to anyone who, like this woman, reached out with the requisite faith and touched Jesus, especially in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

This expectant faith is not that predominant today, when people rather routinely shuffle into church, attend Mass, and receive Communion before dashing home to read the newspaper and watch television. By going through these “churchy” motions, they feel they have paid their debt to God. Pope Paul VI succinctly summarized this attitude when he said, “Unfortunately, today many engage in the liturgical service not as a beautiful ritual, but as pharisaic ritualism.” Many people go automatically through the external motions with very little internal fervor. Their participation is often apathetic and lethargic. They do not have the incandescent “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6. NAB) that they should have when they engage in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and especially when they receive Communion. They might be touching Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist, but they are not being healed. They might pray, “Heal me, heal members of my family, and heal my marriage,” but they are not exerting any real faith that could educe such healing. Their faith is merely a faith of urgency, not a faith of loving expectancy. Sadly, they are far from experiencing that faith which would enable them to tap into the full power of the sacrament.

Why is this the case? In January 1992, the Gallup organization conducted a scientific poll among 519 Catholics to assess what Catholics in the United States believe about Holy Communion. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points. Alarmingly, the poll showed that most Catholics were seriously confused about one of the most fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church. When asked to choose among four different options the one that best described their belief regarding the Eucharist, only 30 percent of those surveyed chose the traditional Catholic teaching, namely, that they were receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine (by a substance change called transubstantiation). Another 29 percent felt they were receiving bread and wine which merely symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus, and in doing so, were expressing their attachment to his person and his works. Ten percent thought that, in receiving Holy Communion, they were receiving bread and wine in which Jesus is really and truly present – the traditional Lutheran understanding of the Eucharist (impanation or consubstantiation). Finally, 24 percent believed they werer receiving what has become the Body and Blood of Christ because of their personal believe, which reflects the traditional Calvinist doctrine.

Two years later, in April 1994, a New York Times/CBS News poll queried a sample of American Catholics and asked them, “Which of the following comes closest to what you believe takes place at Mass: (1) the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, or (2) the bread and wine are symbolic reminders of Christ?” The results of this poll were equally dismal and confirmed the results of the earlier poll. Only 34 percent believed that the bread and wine were changed into Christ’s Body and Blood. Another 63 percent said that they believed that the bread and wine were symbolic reminders of Christ.

Regardless of which poll you look at, about two out of every three Catholics do not believe in the real, physical, eucharistic presence. Two out of every three Catholics do not believe Jesus’ words, “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world….Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:51, 53:55, NAB). These people would probably be somewhat surprised to learn that they fit the classic description of a heretic as defined by Canon 751 of the canon law of the Catholic Church! If two out of every three Catholics do not believe these words of Jesus, how are they going to have any true devotion? And how can they experience the healing power of the Eucharist? These people lack a basic level of faith, and a basic belief in God’s revealed truth is missing from their lives.

The real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist is a 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.” Nazianzen,

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 of heaven? Without faith in Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, how can there be any faith in his healing power 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. A tremendous amount of potential energy is never actualized in the sacrament of the Eucharist. It lies dormant, like all the drops of water in the ocean that harbor prodigious quantities of energy but await the day when scientists discover ways of releasing and directing the tremendous force they store. Few people may realize that a cup of water would suffice to produce enough energy to equal that of a nuclear bomb. Likewise, few people realize that through the sacrament of the Eucharist we have access to enormous spiritual power. Many people are not tapping into that spiritual power because of an apathy based upon lack of faith.

Scripture describes the end times in various places, and Jesus referred to some of the signs that will characterize the end times. Some of these signs, unfortunately, can be observed today. One sign is a lack of faith. In Luke 18:8 (NAB) Jesus asks, “ But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Elsewhere Jesus tells us that a lack of love will be another sign of the end times. In Matthew 24:12 he warns us that “because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold.”  In Galatians 5:6 (NAB), St. Paul tells us, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” The Greek expression for “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6) can also be rendered as “faith energized by love.”

If there is neither much faith nor much love, how can much power be released? How can potential power be released as actual power? The first obstacle to the release of grace in the sacrament of the Eucharist is receiving it with only limited love, that is, fervor or devotion.

This excerpt is from the book The Healing Power of the Eucharist, by John H. Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Books, an imprint of St. Anthony Messenger Press. This and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.