Deliverance from Intrinsic Evil

When Jesus reenacts the sacrifice of Calvary during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he is, in effect, opening to us his Sacred Heart in a flood of healing. Isaiah 53:4-5 (NAB) tells us: “Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.” Similarly, 1 Peter 2:24 (NAB) says, “He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (emphasis added). Thus, Jesus’ death brought spiritual healing from the ravages of sin, and still does so today by his ever-repeated eucharistic sacrifice. Matthew quotes that passage from Isaiah in reference to both spiritual and physical healing: “He drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick” (Mt 8:16, emphasis added).

Thus, three times Scripture assures us that, because of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, our pain, oppression, spiritual sickness (sin), and even demonic contamination are lifted. By Jesus’ passion and death, we can claim all four types of healing, discussed in previous articles: physical, emotional, spiritual (intrinsic), and deliverance (extrinsic) healing. We only need to appropriate this healing through faith.

Unfortunately, few people have the faith to say, for example, “I don’t have to suffer this headache, Lord. You’ve suffered it already for me with a crown of thorns.” If we did have the intense faith to believe that “by his wounds you have been healed,” especially when we are reenacting the covenanted suffering and death of Christ symbolically in the Eucharist, then we would truly grasp the healing process that can occur in Communion. We would truly understand the covenant words of the nobleman to his son’s murderer: “We’ve shared food together in this covenant, so you are free to live. Go in peace.” We would realize that we are protected, and that protection is also preventive healing: protection from accidents, protection from disease, and protection from disorder, until it is time for us to finish our lives and go to heaven. As St. Paul reminds us, “How much more then, since we are not justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life? (Rom 5:9-10, NAB, emphasis added).

Of course, other spiritual healings occur in the Eucharist. One form of spiritual healing is that we come to recognize Jesus in many hidden forms. Jesus accompanied his disciples on the road to Emmaus for quite a distance, yet they failed to recognize him. In fact, their whole conversation revolved around Jesus of Nazareth and all the events that had taken place in Jerusalem a few days before. Finally, as they approached the village and night was beginning to fall, they urged this stranger to stay with them for the night. When they sat down to eat, this stranger “took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them” (Lk 24:30, NAB). It was only at this point that they recognized him. Through the Eucharist, we too come to recognize (by faith) Christ in his hidden forms.

Before this “healing,” Jesus might be for us the “hidden” Christ, such as the besotten skid row derelict lying in the gutter or any other person in whom the presence of Jesus is difficult to recognize. “If you have done it to one of these, you have done it to me.” In this eucharistically induced “recognition healing,” we find and come to recognize the hidden Christ all around us. Then we begin to notice that our interpersonal relationships are enhanced because we have found Jesus in him many hidden forms just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus found him in the eucharistic banquet he provided for them before he disappeared from their sight.

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.