The Eucharist and politics

The Catholic Church in the United States is in the third and final year of a National Eucharistic Revival that aims to “renew the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist.” While the first year (2022-2023) was dedicated to diocesan revival, and the second year (2023-2024) was devoted to parish renewal, this last year (2024-2025) is focused on Catholics being sent out as missionary disciples into the world.
 
The Eucharist is at the very heart of our Catholic faith because it is Christ Himself truly present in sacramental form. The Eucharist perfects our union with Christ and draws us into His loving act of self-offering to God the Father for the salvation of mankind. When we receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion with the right dispositions, we are united intimately with Christ and receive an immeasurable outpouring of His grace into our hearts. 
 
Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Crookston Diocese, who is the chair of the bishops’ committee overseeing the National Eucharistic Revival, says the Eucharistic Revival is meant to ignite a fire among Catholics that will set our nation ablaze with the love of God. Bishop Cozzens’ encouragement echoes St. Catherine of Siena’s famous words, “Be what you ought to be, and you will set the world on fire!” The Eucharist is not meant to be kept to ourselves but rather is meant to change us so that we can change the world.
 
But what does the Eucharist have to do with politics? The Christian lay faithful are called by God to go out and bring His love into the world and change it from within according to Christian principles and values. Like salt, light and leaven, the Christian lay faithful can and should profoundly influence the world from within in a manner that corresponds with the demands of the Gospel (St. John Paul II, Christifideles Laici 15). The Eucharist equips the Christian lay faithful with the grace they need to transform their own lives so that they, in turn, can transform the world, including the world of politics.    
 
Pope Francis, in his most recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti, has called for “a better kind of politics” based upon social friendship and political charity. Politics at its best is “a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good” (Fratelli Tutti 167). The challenge, however, is that we are always battling human weakness and the inclination to sin. In politics, our sinful tendencies are especially manifest in the raw quest for power, extreme partisanship and selfish individualism. If Catholics would avail themselves of the enormous power of the Eucharist, it would help overcome these tendencies and lead to a better kind of politics that is based upon a spirit of service, fraternal communion and commitment to the common good. 
 
The first temptation in politics is the lust for power. St. Augustine describes this fallen tendency as the libido dominandi, that is, a desire to dominate others. Through our intimate union with Christ in the Eucharist, our will to dominate can be transformed into a will to serve: “In the Eucharist, Jesus also makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbor. … the Eucharist thus compels all who believe in Him to become ‘bread that is broken’ for others, and to work for the building of a more just and fraternal world” (Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis 88). 
 
A second temptation that marks politics, particularly in our own day, is hyper-partisanship and bitter divisions between the political parties and their members. This tendency toward divisiveness fragments the body politic and makes it extremely difficult for anyone to govern effectively. It also negatively affects the most important social relationships, even leading some people to refuse to associate any longer with family members and friends who do not share their political views. The Eucharist is a powerful spiritual force for building fraternal communion that can heal these divisions. When we receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion, we are intimately united to Christ and thereby enter deeper communion with all the Christian faithful in His body, the Church: “We who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17). The Eucharist has the power to bring people together, heal their divisions and unite those formerly far apart.
 
A third temptation in politics is for people only to look out for their own self-interest and disregard the needs of others. Saint Augustine coined the term incurvatus in se to refer to this sinful tendency to turn inward upon oneself. Politics is a noble vocation only when our leaders and the people they lead are committed to the common good, and not just their own interests. The Eucharist is the “sacrament of charity” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 3) by which God’s love is poured into our hearts for the life of the world. The Eucharist opposes individualism and selfishness by calling us out of ourselves to solidarity with others so that “in all those I meet, I recognize brothers or sisters for whom the Lord gave His life, loving them ‘to the end’” (Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis 88).  
 
This year marks not only the final stage of the Eucharistic revival, but it also happens to be an election year, perhaps like none in our nation’s history. During this final stage of the National Eucharistic Revival devoted to missionary discipleship, and at the close of a pivotal election year marked by bitter divisions among the American people, why not make a New Year’s resolution to live a more Eucharistic-centered life in 2025? While every Catholic should always attend Sunday Mass, consider attending daily Mass, making a weekly holy hour, or even just committing to regular visits to your church to pray before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. As Catholics, we have been entrusted with a tremendous gift in the Eucharist that we should participate in as much as possible, recalling Christ’s words, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” (Luke 12:48).