Jesus’ eucharistic love as healing and strength
Those who know me well know that Jesus and Mary continually invite me deeper into my own healing and growth in maturity. True maturity and fruitfulness can only happen within safe and nurturing relationships—first and foremost by reconnecting again and again with the secure love of God the Father, fully accessible to me through the pierced heart of Jesus. At the same time, I need at least a few fellow members of the body of Christ who truly see me, know me and love me as I am—who bear steady witness and continue encouraging me as I grow. Sure enough, genuine growth and fruitfulness are happening in me, though often not nearly as quickly as I would like, and certainly not without struggles and setbacks.
I am grateful for the stories of Scripture, which give us glimpses into the lives of our fathers and mothers in the Faith. Genesis recounts the story of Abraham and Sarah and the next three generations of their family. Like my own family, theirs was both beautiful and dysfunctional. The Gospels and Acts tell us the story of Jesus and His first followers. Unlike so many hagiographies of the saints—often distorted by the authors—these biblical stories tell us a truer story about these very good and very sinful human beings.
The Power of “And”
Visitors to my rectory often ask me curiously about the ampersand on my wall. It’s a simple painting of a black “&” symbol on a white background. I explain how important the word and is for human beings who are seeking healing and growth. I am far more mature than I was a decade ago, AND I still feel waves of insecurity and shame multiple times a day. I am a beloved child of God, dearly delighted in by Him AND yet, I sometimes still don’t feel particularly lovable.
When we feel threatened, ashamed or insecure, it’s easier to see ourselves and others in black-and-white terms and to label relationships as all good or all bad. It is challenging to tell the fuller truth with kindness or to abide in the messy in-between.
Flawed and Faithful Throughout History
That messy and patient progress (amidst human flaws) is exactly how the biblical stories are told. Abram is chosen to be our father in Faith. He willingly obeys God’s invitation to leave his homeland of Ur behind and sojourn to an unknown promised land. He keeps rekindling his faith in God’s promise of descendants—even though he is 75 years old at the time of the promise and 100 when his son Isaac is finally born.
AND … in Genesis 12, Abram instructs Sarai to lie to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, pretending she is his sister. He allows her to be used sexually by them, preferring to protect himself. AND … when God takes His time with His promises, Abram gives in to Sarai’s nagging and impregnates Hagar, a teenage slave girl he received from Pharaoh. When Sarai becomes jealous and abuses Hagar, Abram stands by passively and leaves Hagar in harm’s way.
He is not characterized as a “bad guy” but the lovable hero of the story—and he is deeply flawed.
Similarly, Simon Peter’s conversion is not a “one and done.” He willingly leaves his nets behind to follow Jesus. He follows divine inspiration in professing Jesus as the Messiah and Son of the living God. However, in the very next moment, he reverts to fear-filled human thinking, trying to dissuade Jesus from His Passion. At the Last Supper, Peter boasts of his fidelity, only to falter hours later in his threefold denial. Even after encountering the risen Jesus, Peter returns to fishing.
Jesus meets him where he is, performs another miraculous catch and even lights a charcoal fire on the beach, inviting Peter to remember his denials and look at his story more directly. This is not Jesus shaming Peter but rather allowing him to be known and loved precisely in the moments where he feels the most shame. Peter affirms three times that he loves Jesus.
But if you look at the Greek, he shifts the language: Jesus twice asks Peter if he loves Him with self-giving (agapaō), and Peter responds — humbly and truthfully — that he loves Him as a brother or friend (phileō). The third time, Jesus adjusts His verbiage and asks Peter if he loves him as a brother. Peter is pained but responds truthfully. He has toned down his bluster about laying down his life for Jesus, even if others don’t. Jesus does not shame him; He simply invites him to “follow me.”
The Slow Work of Trusting Love
Many of us want to be like Peter at Pentecost, on fire with love. We prefer to bypass the slow twists and turns through which our flawed humanity gradually learns to trust, receive and mature in love.
I find that most of us in the modern West, including many who believe they are being very traditional Catholics, have this process backwards. We have a lot to learn from the ancient and medieval worlds, which focused far more on healthy relationships than on productivity or outward performance.
Almost 30 years ago, a young Bishop Burke asked me (then a sophomore in college seminary) to study philosophy at The Catholic University of America. I am so grateful for those years, which allowed me to explore the greatest human minds and hearts, especially Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. They were keen observers of the human heart!
Emotions Are Not the Enemy
Little did I know then that I would be an occasional philosophy professor myself. This past fall, I taught again in our deacon formation program. We spent extra time on what Thomas Aquinas says about virtue and the human passions. By “passions,” he means movements within our body—what we today call emotions.
Our conversations made it obvious to me that most Catholics today see “virtue” as faithfully following rules. Within that view, emotions need to be controlled or subjugated so that the rules can always be followed. Emotions are viewed as annoying and unruly distractions that hinder one’s ability to be good. That is very close to what Immanuel Kant said about duty and ethics, but it is not what our Catechism teaches nor is it the classical or medieval understanding of virtue.
According to Thomas Aquinas, virtuous people desire and embrace the good not because it’s the rule or because they are “supposed to” but because it’s GOOD. They are happy and joyful because they habitually desire the good, embrace the good and delight in the good, even more so when their desire and delight in the good is shared in a healthy community of friends.
I often hear pseudo-Catholic expressions that distort virtue, desire and emotions: “Love is not a feeling; it’s a choice.” “Love is choosing the good of the other.” Yes, Thomas Aquinas describes love as willing the good of another—AND of oneself. But he is talking about the emotion of love, which is where the movement begins. You spontaneously want good things for yourself and for others you care about. Without guidance, that spontaneous wanting will likely be disordered. Over time, divine grace and human intellect will allow true love of God and neighbor to emerge.
I’ve learned quite a lot from neuroscience and trauma research. These insights bring me back excitedly to the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Pope St. John Paul II, both of whom held a childlike wonder as they curiously observed the human heart. I am convinced that if Thomas were alive today, he would be eagerly diving into the latest research, which gives us keen insight into how humans experience and regulate their emotions (or become dysregulated).
Thomas described experiences we would today call “trauma responses” (fight, flight, fawn or freeze). He noticed that a deer that has been hunted will flee at the sight of humans, whereas others without those embodied memories will not. Our bodies store memories and react in an effort to anticipate threats and survive. That’s great in a life-or-death situation, but not so great in everyday relationships.
Contemporary research reinforces the value of calmly noticing and accepting what is happening in our bodies in the present moment—not judging it, not trying to fix or change it, but just noticing it with curiosity and kindness. When intense bodily sensations and emotions (like terror, rage or embarrassment) are calmly noticed, our prefrontal cortex comes online. This is the “highest” and most rational part of our brain, the part most closely associated with regulating our distressed emotions.
Can you see the connection here with virtue? Growth in virtue happens, little by little, as our big emotions learn to be guided by right reason. There is a huge difference between calmly receiving big emotions and guiding them patiently versus aggressively subjugating, controlling or repressing them. Subjugation might work for a while, but eventually there will be a revolt.
Could you pause and ask yourself: What were big emotions like in your family of origin? Was it okay to be depressed, outraged or terrified? Were those emotions met with compassion? Did someone help you make sense of what was happening in your body?
In the 1970s and 1980s, two Catholic therapists, Anna Terruwe and Conrad Baars, occasionally advised Pope St. Paul VI and Pope St. John Paul II. They identified a crisis among Catholic priests, parents and families. They noticed that most Christian homes were not emotionally nurturing environments in which slow-and-steady virtue formation could take place. They observed that many priests and parents were emotionally underdeveloped and more likely to shame or suppress emotions, focusing instead on outward compliance and performance.
At the core of the dilemma, they observed that most adults were largely “unaffirmed” in childhood. Even if parents said “I love you,” even if they outwardly toiled or sacrificed to make ends meet, those children did not feel loved and delighted in, especially on an emotional level and especially when they had big or messy emotions.
Baars suggested that this crisis is so widespread that adults who desire to become emotionally secure and mature and to learn to love well may struggle to find others who themselves feel secure and affirmed.
I felt the truth of these words when I first read them. Eight years ago, I began realizing just how many big emotions I had repressed. Unfortunately, I did not find the deeper care I needed within typical Catholic circles. Thanks be to God, that is starting to change. I am deeply grateful for people like Bob Schuchts, Sister Miriam James Heidland and Father Boniface Hicks. If you have ever spent even a few minutes with any of them, you know how seen, understood, accepted and loved you feel and the genuine growth and maturity that begins to blossom in response.
Purity Grows from Security
Bob Schuchts offers the image of a sapling, growing from healthy roots into a mature tree that bears good fruit. God’s intended order of growth is from security to maturity to purity. God loves us securely first. Ideally, our parents also securely love us for who we are — but I find that is the exception. It was not true for Abraham and Sarah and the next three generations of their family. It was not true for Peter or Paul (both of whom struggled with felt insecurity). Why would we expect it to be any different for us?
Again, we have it backwards. We tend to see “purity” as something easily lost, to be safeguarded with fear and trembling. But if you read paragraphs 2331–2347 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, you see that pure love is not something we are born with; rather, it is something we gradually and patiently develop into, without ever reaching a final destination.
Bishop Erik Varden, in his lovely book “Chastity: The Reconciliation of the Senses,” emphasizes the stark and simple truth that very few Christians are pure … and that is okay. We are invited to be securely loved in the present moment and then to engage in the slow and diligent labor of becoming mature and learning to bear fruit in purity.
The Eucharist: Food for the Imperfect
That is where the Eucharist comes in. We do not approach the Eucharist as those who are already pure; we approach weak, wounded and unworthy AND as dearly beloved children of the Father, already securely bound to Him and to each other in an unbreakable covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus. We acknowledge our unworthiness at the beginning of Mass and again shortly before approaching holy Communion.
Every day I pray those priestly words: “This is My body, which will be given up for you.” They are Jesus’ words to each of us. AND I have my own share in His self-oblation. I am slowly learning that He is not nearly so concerned with me offering an unblemished sacrifice (that is why He offers Himself to the Father!). But, He desires ALL of me—the beautiful and the broken, the parts I like and the parts I would rather hide. He wants it all. He wants the love of His pierced heart to penetrate all of it. As with Peter, He knows my love is inconsistent and imperfect. That does not stop Him from welcoming me with delight into eucharistic Communion.
This is so freeing! Whatever is happening in my body here and now is what I offer Him. It’s always a mix of beauty and brokenness. Only when all the shattered and scattered parts of me belong to Him can I mature as a whole person and become more capable of fruitful self-gift, “which will be given up for you.” Like Peter, I will falter in my maturity and my self-gift. AND as Peter discovered, the eucharistic love of Jesus will emerge ever more fruitfully, in due time.
I still catch myself wanting to bypass the mess and arrive already. The Eucharist is my waybread, the food for the journey. It is my medicine. It heals, strengthens and sustains me. I would be lost and dead without it.
Next time you go to Mass, will you place all of yourself on the altar? Will you allow Jesus to know and touch every place in your heart? Unlike so many of our human homes, workplaces or other environments, the eucharistic feast is one in which our whole heart gets to be loved, no matter how far we may feel from pure love. The eucharistic love of Jesus does the rest.
By Father Derek Sakowski
Published in the Fall 2025 edition of Catholic Life Magazine