“It is in the sacrament of the Eucharist where we profit from His Passion”

The Eucharist is at the heart of our lives as Catholics, a truth that the Church has long recognized and celebrated.

But what does that mean? What role does the Eucharist play in our lives? How does it help us understand God? And how does it help us to understand ourselves?

Father Gregory Pine, O.P., is the author of Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life (Ignatius Press, 2025). He is a professor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an assistant director of the Thomistic Institute. He is a regular contributor to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas.

In Your Eucharistic Identity, Father Pine offers a clear and accessible guide for putting the Eucharist at the heart of our lives, actively receiving this gift which God gives us. But it is not about merely receiving passively. Rather, Christ divinizes us through the Eucharist, making us like Him. And this is what each of us needs, more than anything else.

Father Pine recently spoke with Catholic World Report about his new book and the essential place of the Eucharist in the Christian life.

Catholic World Report: How did the book come about?

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.: I was talking with one of the brothers about graces or fruits of the Eucharistic Revival. It was actually in the year leading up to the National Eucharistic Congress. And we were just kind of struck by, one, this call on the part of the bishops to renew our Eucharistic faith as Catholics; and two, the way in which a lot of folks were framing questions in the contemporary space, specifically as it concerns questions like “Who am I and what am I for?” or what we align with, identity and mission.

It seemed like the moment was propitious. And then the original plan was to write a book of some 40,000 words and to divide it up, 20,000 words written by each of us. But then this other friar got a new assignment and had less in the way of free time.

So, after having written my half of the book, I then wrote his half of the book. And it became my book, which is to say it’s the Lord’s book.

CWR: The Eucharist is Jesus Christ–body, blood, soul, and divinity. How are we supposed to find our identity in the Eucharist?

Fr. Pine: The basic idea is that we find our identity in God and in God as He makes Himself known. We are creatures, which is to say that we have our lives as a gift from Him and that we are responsible for rendering them back. That’s just what it means.

To receive a gift is to render back thanks. But obviously God makes Himself known in our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. And so not only are we creatures, but we’re also beloved sons and daughters.

And that status is made known to us in the Son. As we come to an appreciation of our status as beloved sons and daughters, that gives us the wherewithal to respond generously to God’s gift. And our Lord obviously wants to abide with us to prolong or extend His stay with us here on the surface of the earth, in the Church, and in the sacraments.

And so it’s specifically in the sacrament of the Eucharist where we profit from His Passion. We lay hold of His grace and virtue, and we accompany Him into eternal life. And so I place a specific emphasis in the book upon making a sacrifice of our lives.

And, obviously, our meeting point with Christ and His sacrifice is especially precious to that end.

CWR: The Church is the Body of Christ, and the unity of that Body is reflected in Holy Communion, which is why non-Catholics are not to receive. Does our “Eucharistic Identity” have anything to teach us about ecumenism?

Father Pine: Yes, so the book has a kind of ecumenical take on things. My observation is that sometimes people define themselves against. Because of the polarization of our society socially, politically, culturally, etc., we tend to just observe what other people with whom we disagree say, and then we say the opposite.

But that’s not a principled way in which to formulate our opinions or even to confess our beliefs. Sometimes in ecumenical settings, we do that, which is to say we define ourselves against, which can be unhelpful. So, we hear it said that Protestants think that we’re justified by faith, so as Catholics, we must think something else, right? No, we also think that we’re justified by faith, but we insist that it’s a faith breathing forth love, and it’s a love made manifest in works, right? It’s a living faith; it’s a formed faith.

And I think you see something similar happen in sacramental life. We have it in our minds that Protestants say that the Eucharist is just a symbol, so we say, “Oh, it can’t be a symbol, it’s got to be something else.” When, truth be told, the Eucharist is a kind of symbol, which is to say it’s a sign. And it’s a specific kind of sign—it’s a sacrament.

A sacrament is just a sign of a sacred thing that makes men holy, says St. Thomas Aquinas. So the approach is ecumenical insofar as it’s an attempt to, not so much move beyond, but take a more principled stance than mere back-and-forth dialectics or apologetics, and to appropriate our Eucharistic doctrine and set it forward for the sake of a certain recovery.

CWR: You refer to a wonderful observation from Servant of God Luigi Giussani: when you hold the gaze of the beloved, all is made right. How can we hold the gaze of Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist?

Fr. Pine: We can just look at Him in the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass, and in Eucharistic Adoration, and in our lives of prayer, which are an extension thereof. And I think that kind of physicality is something by which we are saved. We don’t believe that the sacraments are magical. You have to bring faith to them; you have to bring intention to them.

Nevertheless, there’s something real in His presence, there’s something at work in His presence, and proximity can be a great help. I don’t think that we can look beyond that. And so I think that situating our lives in terms of that Eucharistic worship, Eucharistic adoration, prayer life more broadly, is helpful.

You go to the sacrament, or you go to adoration, for instance, and there’s a kind of temptation to start planning your day. … I think that insofar as you can bracket those things and set aside time for the Lord, you can just simply repeat before the monstrance, this is you loving me, this is you saving me, as He makes Himself known in the concrete setting of your life.

CWR: Is there anything particularly Dominican or Thomistic in your approach in this book?

Fr. Pine: Spoiler alert—everything that I do is particularly Dominican and Thomistic. What really gives structure to the book is that I want to read the signs present in the Eucharistic liturgy as a way to get an indication as to what it’s doing in our lives, because that’s how a sacrament is set up. While many in the Church have taught this doctrine, I got it from St. Thomas, and he says that all the sacraments signify something of the past, something of the present, and something of the future.

With respect to the past, they signify the Passion. With respect to the present, they signify grace and virtue. And with respect to the future, they signify eternal life.

So, in the Eucharist, there’s a particular application of this doctrine, because St. Thomas says we can track it in the principal Eucharistic signs, and that’s the substance of chapters 5 through 7. It’s especially Dominican in that it’s part of a preaching apostolate, which is a kind of holy preaching. Dominican preaching prides itself on being more than just apologetic and charismatic, more than just catechetical, more than just moral, but mystagogical.

And that it takes you by the hand and leads you into the mysteries. And when it comes to our approach to sacred doctrine, we really do take our cues from St. Thomas Aquinas.

CWR: Is this a book only for Catholics? Or would it be beneficial for non-Catholics, as well?

Fr. Pine: I suppose you can answer that question in two senses.

One, I think everyone is potentially Catholic, and I want everyone to be Catholic because the fullness abides in Catholic communion, and you have access to all the means of salvation in the Catholic communion.  I want everyone to become Catholic, so I think everyone ought to consider it as a prospect for their future. But then I think it also is a book from which non-Catholics can profit, especially Orthodox and Protestants, people who hold to a certain sacramental life.

And I think that people will see confluences with their tradition, which stand out in marked contrast to the assumed total disagreement that some people kind of have in mind.

CWR: What do you hope people will take away from the book?

Fr. Pine: I think my main hope for the book is that people would take away from it a conviction that God is for them and not against them; that he makes himself available to them in the setting of Eucharistic worship. And that he isn’t making our lives more obscure than they need to be, or more painful, suffering-laden than they need to be.

Basically, he’s communicating to us in a profoundly human way, as befits human healing and growth. This is all tailor-made for our maturation, and this idea of faith and sacramental life is specifically for us. It’s how God makes himself available for us.

It’s how he makes it so that we can recognize him and receive him in a way from which we can profit. I think a lot of people think that Mass is like a secret key you’ve got to figure out, or like a code you’ve got to crack. When, truth be told, God wants to be found, but he’s going to hide himself in such a way as to elicit or facilitate a genuinely human discovery.

So, I think that people can find in this means for that, a genuinely human discovery.

CWR: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Fr. Pine: There are a lot of books written about the Eucharist, and … you don’t have to read them all.

You could read some, and you might profit in due course. But I think that everyone should have a kind of studious part of their life. Everyone should be looking to work their way further up, further into the divine life, and part of that is getting a bit keen for the acquisition of wisdom. Because it really does fuel our life of prayer, and it encourages us in sacramental reception and worship.

• Related at CWR: “How the Eucharist should shape who we are and what we do” (Jan 1, 2026) by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt