Emotional Healing From the Eucharist

The second kind of healing that awaits us in the Eucharist is emotional healing, a healing that occurs in our minds. We have already seen that the fruit of the Spirit – especially love, joy, and peace – are available to us through our contact with Jesus in the Eucharist and provide us with healing beyond the mere physical. In fact, both spiritual and emotional healings ensue when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion.

It is important to note that healing us emotionally was a part of Christ’s purpose in coming to us on earth. In Luke 4:16-30, Jesus was in Nazareth and went to the synagogue to pray on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah; he unrolled it and read this passage: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord….Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:18-21, NAB).

The passage to which Jesus refers is Isaiah 61:1-2. There, the original reads, “He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted” (emphasis added). Besides being sent to heal people physically, Jesus reiterates here that he has also been sent to heal the brokenhearted – those who are depressed, sorrowful, or unhappy – as well as to release those who are in bondage, particularly bondage to evil spirits. Jesus’ compassion covered the whole gamut of human dysfunctions, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual.

When we are in intimate contact with Jesus physically present in the Eucharist and are completely open to assimilating the continued spiritual presence of Christ, we are maximally disposed for every type of healing. In calling to mind the benefits of receiving the Holy Eucharist, St. Thomas Aquinas declared that it is the most health-giving of all the sacraments: by it sins are washed away, virtues are increased, and the soul is fed and filled with an abundance of all spiritual gifts. The Eucharist is truly a banquet of spiritual delights! Sadly, though, many Catholics today are ignorant of the subtle yet powerful ways in which these health-giving effects of the Eucharist are at work when we receive this sacrament.

Our spiritual union with Jesus in the Eucharist is an intimate union. If we approach the Eucharist with the right predisposition, the soul of Christ will be united with our souls to make us of one heart and one mind with him. We will be caught up in God’s wonderous benefits, enthralled by his rapturous beauty, aware of his holiness and righteousness, and overwhelmed by his inexhaustible goodness. When we receive the Eucharist devoutly, the mind of Christ will enlighten our minds with the radiance of faith and help us recognize the gospel truths, which are often clouded over and obscured by our natural instincts. Like the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, we too will experience a special closeness with the risen Jesus and, like them, exclaim, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke with us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32, NAB). Only when Jesus repeated the Last Supper ritual of consecrating the bread did the two recognize his august presence. At that point, “their eyes were opened” (Lk 24:31, NAB) and they were healed of their despondency

Our spiritual union with Jesus in the Eucharist will always transform us. Little by little, our thoughts, ideas, convictions, and feelings will undergo a change. We will no longer judge everything by the world’s standards but by the standards of the gospels. The Eucharist is the most excellent aid in prompting us to ask ourselves the question so popular among young people today, especially those who have given their lives over to Jesus: “What would Jesus do?” As a result, our desires will also undergo a change. We will realize that our desires are so often wrong. Our frequent reception of the Eucharist will strengthen us os that our ambitions, desires, and choices conform to those of Christ, whom we are receiving.

Finally, as we experience changes in our desires, we will also experience a real change of heart. We will be set free from our more or less conscious self-centeredness and from our lower natural inclinations and attachments so that we might love God and our neighbor more ardently, more generously, and even more passionately. We will be able to join our voices to that of St. Paul, who in his spiritual transformation exclaimed, “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20, NAB).

We must never underestimate the degree to which different virtues will be strengthened through our reception of the Eucharist and the healing effect these virtues will ultimately have on our emotional well-being. For example, the Eucharist generates strength. In fact, long ago Holy Communion was called “the bread of the strong.” The grind of daily life may often overtax our energy to the point that we find ourselves bending from the strain. Yet Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist with his mighty grace and energizes us, renews us, and strengthens us, enabling us to take up our cross daily and follow him.

At times we may feel as though we are strong yet lack the courage to face the ever-recurring drudgery of a home life or work life that is the result of misunderstanding, want, or illness. When we feel emotionally drained like this, the Eucharist can generate greater courage in us. When we find ourselves losing heart, the best thing to do is to make contact with Jesus and draw courage from him in Holy Communion so we can get back on our feet. He is there for us.

The Eucharist can also help us grow in patience. We might exhibit tremendous strength and courage when confronted with tremendous strength and courage when confronted with tremendous ordeals, yet still notice a lack of patience when confronted with minute trials that come our way, whether it be the family member who squeezes the toothpaste in the middle or the coworker who habitually greets us with a whack on the back. But when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion and realize what a tremendous privilege it is to be united with him, we see these silly trials for what they are. Jesus will supply us with the grace to retrain ourselves and even with the ability to overlook, or forgive and forget, these petty irritants. In addition, the increase of God’s love in us that follows a good Communion will bring us closer to God and to others.

These are only a few examples of the changes that occur when we receive the Eucharist devoutly. We should always desire these changes and take an active role in seeking them out. The benefits may seem imperceptible at first, but gradually they will have a powerful effect on our spiritual and emotional health. At the same time, we should also take great care to leave the door open for Jesus to heal our emotional wounds in sudden and dramatic ways.

May people have shared with me their stories of how Jesus in the Eucharist has healed deep-rooted, emotional wounds in some unexpected yet lasting ways. Often people are hesitant to share these healings because it is more difficult to authenticate emotional healings that it is to substantiate physical healings. Physical wounds are visible to the eye emotional wounds are not,

Recently I received a letter from a woman who experienced an emotionally healing through the Eucharist. She had become pregnant when she was young and unmarried her parents made her get an abortion. In a letter to me, she related how God worked in her life:

“After the abortion, I couldn’t live with myself for what I had done, and became emotionally distraught. My mother tried to console me by reminding me of that old axiom, ‘Time heals all wounds,’ but there was never a day that went by after that when I didn’t think of the baby who had once been inside my womb. “Years passed and I happened to see a young woman on Christian television who had also had an abortion, telling the audience to give their aborted babies a name, and assuring us that our babies were in heaven. I took her advice and named my baby “Elizabeth,’ for I always felt the infant in my womb was a girl. As for her stating that the babies were in heaven and not just in limbo or nonexistent, I wasn’t sure if she knew what she was talking about, but could only hope.

Many years went by before I attended one of your seminars on Healing the Family Tree. The seminar was wonderful, and I put my baby’s name and her father’s name on my family tree to be prayed for at the altar during Mass, as you suggested.

It wasn’t until the seminar was nearly over, however, and before you were about to distribute Holy Communion, that you stated that many miracles had been reported to you by participants in the seminars when they received Holy Communion. I thought to myself, somewhat sarcastically, ‘No miracles ever happen to me.’

“Well, I received Communion and returned to my seat with the host in my mouth. As soon as I sat down, and with my eyes closed, I had a vision. I saw my daughter in heaven wearing a light brown dress with puffy sleeves. She wasn’t an infant or twenty-two years old, which would have been her natural age if she had lived, but she was a little girl of about ten years of age. Jesus stood next to her with his arm around her shoulders. They both stood beaming with an indescribable joy, and waving their hands vigorously at me as if to say that everything was all right. It was a heavenly joy, so radiantly pure and wonderful that words cannot adequately describe it.

“From that day on, I knew my child was safe in the arms of Jesus, living in complete happiness and joy in paradise.”

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.