The Eucharist and a Personal Relationship with Christ

“Our world is hurting. We all need healing... Scandal, division, disease, doubt. The Church has withstood each of these throughout our very human history. But today we confront all of them, all at once. Our response in this moment is pivotal. The world needs healing, and the world needs the Church.” These are the words of the National Eucharistic Revival, a U.S. initiative that has as its mission the renewal of the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It is a three year initiative that began in June of this year, and will conclude in July 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana, where 100,000 Catholics are estimated to gather together to “worship our Risen Lord in his humble disguise” and allow the Holy Spirit to “enkindle a missionary fire in the heart of our nation…”

According to the National Eucharistic Revival, the answer to a hurting world is a relationship with Jesus Christ. The means for experiencing that relationship is the Sacrament of the Eucharist, for the Eucharist provides the means by which Jesus can be encountered and even consumed. It is for this reason that the Catholic Church refers to the Eucharist as the “source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324).

In August 2019, the Pew Research Center found that approximately 31% of U.S. Catholics don’t agree with the official teachings of the Catholic Church that during the Eucharistic adoration the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. If the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life,” this is problematic for the Catholic Church (at least in the U.S.). The Covid-19 pandemic created an additional stress on the Church when the Eucharist was moved online for a long period, and some parishes continue to celebrate the Eucharist virtually. This has led to a “massive drop in attendance at the Eucharist.”

This begs an important question: If the Eucharist is often virtual, and if an increasing amount of U.S. Catholics deny the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, how can the Catholic faithful encounter Christ and have a personal relationship with him? This is the reason for the Eucharistic Revival. This is the reason that the mission of the Revival is to “enkindle a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ…in the Eucharist.”

It is important for the Evangelical church to understand that while it is true that the Roman Catholic Church at times speaks of and advocates for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, what that means and how it is effectuated are very different. If a personal relationship with Jesus is made possible through the Eucharist and through the Sacraments (which culminate in the Eucharist), this means that a personal relationship with Christ is in part works based and is always mediated by the Church through natural objects (i.e. bread and wine) that become vessels of grace. Indeed, “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments…are necessary for salvation (CCC, 1129, italics original). If I do not participate in the Eucharist and the other sacraments (which again, culminate in the Eucharist), I cannot have a proper relationship with Christ, and therefore I cannot be saved.  

This also highlights the Christ-Church interconnection. A relationship with Christ is synonymous with a relationship with the Church. It is the Church that makes Christ present to the faithful by means of the Eucharist and the sacraments. The Church is the continuation of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Church is Christ and Christ is the Church. Although the lines of this teaching have been greatly blurred since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), even to a point of being unrecognizable, the Church still claims that “all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His body…Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it” (CCC, 846). The blurring of this seemingly clear teaching is made immediately evident in the next sentence which quotes Lumen gentium, 16. “This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and His Church” (CCC, 847).

Additionally, although the Catholic Church confesses a Trinitarian doctrine, it is a confused doctrine. If Christ is made physically present in the Eucharist, and if the bread truly becomes his body and the wine truly becomes his blood (CCC 1378 affirms this), Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is continually perpetuated and continually re-enacted. In the Eucharist, then, there is direct interaction between the Catholic and Christ through the Church. If it is through the church that that relationship is mediated, what role does the Holy Spirit play in making possible a relationship with Jesus Christ? The Bible teaches that Christ, the Son of God the Father, suffered on the cross once and for all time. His sacrificial work is complete and final (Hebrews 9:11-28; Hebrews 7:27; John 19:30). He sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26; Romans 8:34).

The Bible indeed teaches that we can have a personal and saving relationship with Jesus Christ. This is Good News! The means of that relationship, however, is not the Eucharist and it is not the sacraments. This of course does not mean that the sacraments Christ instituted (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are not important aspects of the Christian life. Indeed, they are. Martin Luther defined the sacraments Christ instituted as divine promises of forgiveness joined to a visible sign. They are important because they render the gospel visible and pronounce its good news. But they do not save. Grace is not a “thing” that the sacraments convey. Grace is God the Father giving the Son through the Spirit. Only in this way grace opens the way to a personal relationship between God and us. Only through faith alone in Christ alone through God’s grace alone can we experience a personal relationship with Christ and be justified and forgiven of our sins.

“A personal relationship with Christ.” Both the Evangelical church and the Roman Catholic Church speak of this, but the theological worlds they represent are very different and the implications are significant.