How the Eucharist should shape who we are and what we do

In addition to its religious significance as the octave of Christmas and Solemnity of the Mother of God, New Year’s Day has become a time for self-reflection and self-improvement. It’s a time to begin again, to resolve to become a better version of ourselves. In addition to thoughts of eating better, losing weight, or exercising more, it is also a fitting time to take stock of our spiritual lives.

We’ve just celebrated the great feast of the Incarnation, but has the mystery that we celebrated changed our lives as it should?

There is a marvelous new resource to aid such self-reflection in Fr. Gregory Pine, OP’s recent book, Your Eucharistic Identity. The subtitle of the book suggests its programme: “A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life.” We hear about “identity” a lot these days. In the modern West, this concept is loaded with plenty of philosophical, ideological, and even political baggage. Many of our contemporaries understand identity as something self-forged: I am the one in control of who I am, not only in my choice of occupation and relationships but even down to biology and gender, and the rest of the world must not only respect my choices but bend itself to them.

In the face of such a strident use of the word “identity,” the believing Christian might be tempted to abandon the word and concede such discussions to the enemies of the Church. Yet Fr Pine’s book challenges us to be bold. The questions raised by members of the so-called “LGBT community” and others are worthwhile. We must all wrestle with thoughts of who we are and where we are going, or otherwise live a shallow life. The questions are fundamentally the same. The difference lies in where we look for answers.

Christians believe, contrary to the prevailing culture, that we receive our identity from God. More specifically, we discover who we are in Jesus Christ Himself, and in a surprisingly deep way: “Christ does not want to give us any identity. He wants to give us His identity.” Understanding our identity as a gift flips the modern discussion of identity on its head. But it also challenges even us believers to self-examination: am I living the life that God wants to give me?

God, of course, has not left us to ourselves without resources. The bulk of Fr Pine’s book unpacks the following thesis:

Our identity is disclosed and bestowed in a life of Eucharistic worship. If we want to know who we are and what we are for, there is both revelation and grace to be had from our Eucharistic belief and practice.

The subsequent work focuses on the purpose of the Eucharist as connecting the great mysteries of our faith to our daily lives.

Fr. Pine lays the foundations of such a thesis deep within the basic truths of the Catholic Faith. God has created us to share in His own divine life. The sin of Adam and Eve complicated that plan when Satan tempted them to grasp as their own absolute possession something that God was already giving them: likeness to Himself.

Jesus Christ came, God made flesh, to restore the possibility of communion with the Trinity. He could have saved us merely by speaking a word, but instead He chose to become one of us, to live as a human being lives, to face death as human beings face death. “So great is His desire to be near us that He personally enters into every dimension of our human lives, transfiguring them with His love and enabling our own response of love.”

And by way of a superabundant gift, these saving actions of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection do not remain in the past. Through the Church and the sacraments we receive through her, these mysteries of the life of Christ are made present in our lives today and serve as a pledge of our future with God in the new heavens and new earth.

Through the sacraments of the Church, Jesus Christ gives us His own life, and by receiving Him we partake in the life of the Trinity Itself. This is not a metaphor. It is the supreme gift that began on Christmas Day (and before): the God-man uses visible means to make us capable of entering into the communion of love that is God, as well as perfecting our love for each other.

After refreshing our memories of these fundamental truths, Fr Pine goes on to unpack how the Eucharist is the privileged place in which this communion happens. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, as the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church remind us. These words are not a clever theological slogan, but rather express a reality that should take its place at the heart of our whole life. The Eucharist—especially as encountered and received in the Mass—truly is the Lord.

By this Sacrament of Sacraments, Jesus empowers us to grow in our relationship with Him and with the entire Body of Christ. The Eucharist is a participation in the saving actions of the past, food for our present journey, and a promise of our future home.

Over half of the pages of Your Eucharistic Identity (chapters 4-7) focus on unpacking how the symbolism inherent in the Eucharist helps us to better understand what Jesus is calling us to be and become by the graces of the sacrament. The Eucharistic Liturgy is a re-presentation of the saving death of Our Lord, presented now in such a way that we can offer up our sacrifices united to His.

The Eucharist is presented to us under the appearances of bread and wine, food that is both basic and brings joy to the heart. And as the bread and the wine are brought together from various grapes and heads of grain, so the Eucharist unites us as the Body of Christ and makes us fit for heaven together.

Fr. Pine concludes his work with a series of practical points of advice we can use to help reorient our lives around the centrality of the Eucharist. His book does not seek to teach us anything new, but to present perennial truths in a new and compelling way. In a world full of distractions, we can never be reminded enough that Jesus is calling us all to be one with Him and to find our identity in Him so as to bring Him to others.

And if we have not always lived out the depths of the graces we receive in the Eucharist, New Year’s is a great opportunity to begin again.

Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life
By Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.
Ignatius Press, 2025
Paperback, 168 pages