Spiritual Healings From the Eucharist

We have previously discussed physical and emotional healing from the Eucharist. The third kind of healing that awaits us in the Eucharist is spiritual healing. Jesus has promised his true believers an eternal banquet, inviting them to “eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Lk 22:30, NAB). As a foretaste of that eternal banquet, he invites us in this life to the eucharistic table, where, as the hymn phases it, “God and man at table have sat down.”

This banquet has its origins, of course, in Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, the Passover meal. This was the first Mass. It was a transition from the old covenant to the new covenant, from the old dispensation to the new dispensation, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you,” Jesus said (Lk 22:20, NAB). These are the sacred words repeated today at he consecration of the wine each time we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This covenant is available to us now in this continually renewed pledge of that future heavenly banquet.

The Passover meal was a commemorative meal in memory of the Exodus, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and freed them from the slavery they had endured there. Jesus and his disciples ate this meal on Holy Thursday, only a few hours before Jesus was to be crucified on Calvary. With this meal, he was forewarning his disciples he was going to shed his blood, thereby becoming their new Redeemer, or Rescuer. He was telling them that this Passover meal, the Last Supper, was transition point. No longer would they celebrate it in memory of Moses and what the Lord had done for his people at that time. He was starting something new: By his redemptive act on Calvary, Jesus, the new Moses, would lead his people out of slavery – not slavery to the Egyptians but slavery to the devil. In one meal, he overlapped the old dispensation with the new dispensation. Furthermore, he did not come to destroy the old covenant; he came to fulfill it (see Matthew 5:17).

This concept of covenant is very important. A covenant is not the same thing as a contract; a covenant is open-ended. Covenants were often ratified with a meal in the ancient Near East, and it is enlightening to look at this custom in its historical context. In the culture of that time, a meal was the expression of a bond of friendship. When you shared food with someone, you were pledging your protection to that person.

A true story about a Persian nobleman illustrates this Near Eastern concept of covenant relationship. This Persian nobleman was walking in his garden when a man climbed over the wall of the garden and approached him. He was fleeing a lynch mob bent on killing him. The nobleman, who had authority to grant amnesty, had pity on this man because he was going to be slaughtered. The nobleman was eating a peach at the time, so he broke off part of the peach and shared it with the man. When the clamoring mob finally came into the garden to pursue this man, the nobleman said. “What did he do?” The people replied, “He just committed a murder and the murder victim was your son.” The man was brokenhearted to learn that his son had been killed and that the culprit was the man with whom he had just shared his peach. But he said, “I’ve shared food with you. I am covenanted with you. We’ve shared food together, so you are free to live. Go in peace.”

In a sense, we have all killed God’s Son on Calvary, Jesus died because of us, because of our sins. Yet, we are protected from any culpability because of the covenant promise concluded by the sharing of food – the consecrated bread and wine, Jesus’ Body that has been broken and his Blood that has been shed so that our sins may be forgiven.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we do not repeat Calvary; we reenact Calvary. Hebrews 9:27-28 tells us that Christ died once for our sins and that he can die no more. Christ does not die a physical death on the altar; he undergoes a mystical or symbolic death. It is an unbloody sacrifice that is “reenacted” on stage, so to speak. However, even though the death of Christ on the altar is not real, the presence of Christ on the altar after the consecration is real. This is an important distinction in eucharistic theology that most non-Catholics do not understand and most Catholics, unfortunately, do not believe. The death of Christ on the altar is not real, but the person of Christ after the consecration is real. Because the consecration is not just a human act but a God-man (theandric) act, Christ’s “mystical” death in the Mass can produce the same effect as if he were dying on Calvary.

St. Paul gives further meaning to this symbolic or eucharisticized death of the present and life-giving Christ on the altar: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26, NAB, emphasis added). It is in Jesus’ death, reenacted on the altar, that we have the Eucharist. It is here that we have its healing focus.

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.