Advent offers an invitation to consider the deeper meaning of Eucharist, especially as it is expressed in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ

By Peter Oliver, Catholic Health Association of Saskatchewan

Eucharist is celebrated every year approximately 148,542,590 times throughout the global church. That’s a guesstimate based on the number of priests in the world and the reality that typically each priest celebrates the Eucharist once a day.

The range of places where the Eucharist is celebrated includes ancient Cathedral Basilicas, modern parishes, university chapels, military bases, care homes and hospitals, monasteries, makeshift shelters in refugee camps, and prisons.

All of this points to the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the Church and Advent offers an invitation to consider its deeper meaning, especially as it is expressed in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

One of the most moving celebrations of Eucharist that I ever experienced took place at a Jesuit ministry at a garbage dump in Juárez, Mexico.  The Jesuits and their lay associates drew close to the families who lived in the dump and survived by sifting through its refuse. This closeness bore fruit in the development of a small Christian community. It was there that I witnessed Christ present to the most abandoned, and Christ celebrated in a simple Eucharist which included a liturgical dance offered by the children who grew up in those dire conditions.

This humble, yet powerful, celebration—occurring amid such destitution— illustrates the hidden dignity of the Eucharist. It is Christ’s heartbeat!  And it is this profound truth that the Second Vatican Council sought to articulate when it spoke of the Eucharist as the source and summit of all Christian life, animating every activity that has a Catholic identity.

Given the centrality of the Eucharist, how can we become more aware of its pulse in Catholic Health Care?  How can we recognize when the decisions made in our boardrooms and at our patients’ bedsides are Eucharistic?

The most obvious answer is found in the dedicated service of our care aides, food service personnel, spiritual care providers, nurses, doctors and directors. They are the living, breathing expression of Christ.

But in a health system that prizes excellence above all things, we need to be careful. The human tendency to exalt skills and achievements as the most profound expressions of our humanity can cloud our vision. An athlete on the highest level of the Olympic podium appears to be the ne plus ultra, the absolute fullness of what humans can be. But human fragility that is cloaked in Divine Love is far more transformative and healing than our most exceptional human accomplishment.

At the Hospice at Glengarda in Saskatoon, the Eucharist is celebrated on every second Tuesday. Often, these celebrations involve a single patient, one or two family members, the spiritual care provider, and the priest.

As we ponder the emotional weight of hospice care, the centrality of this intimate moment could be overshadowed by its humble outward form. Yet, it is precisely in this quiet, unassuming ritual that the Catholic tradition finds its most majestic expression.  Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem and his death on the cross were shrouded in such hiddenness.

The gospel accounts of the shepherds, the visit of the sages, and the testimony of the centurion at the foot of the cross might suggest otherwise. However, when we look beyond their theological purpose, we may fairly conclude that for the majority of people, Jesus’ birth and death were unimportant events – hardly worth mentioning.

What was missed in Jesus’ time and often overlooked in ours is God’s disrupting strength. When we are formed by the self-emptying (or kenosis) of a Eucharistic life, we learn that the deepest expression of God is manifested not in strength but in diminishment. It’s a paradoxical encounter that overturns our expectations.

I recently visited a friend in the palliative care unit at St. Paul’s hospital who is dying from pancreatic cancer. Though she is not a Catholic, I know my encounter with her is Eucharistic. Her radiant smile, her genuine interest in others, her deep love for her husband, her warm affection for her sons, their spouses, and children, and her profound care for the poor that she demonstrated throughout her life —these qualities echo the words and actions of Jesus: “Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me (Lk. 22:19).” They effectively make God present and they do so now in a more profound way than ever before precisely because they are manifest in her frailty.

During Advent many homes will feature a nativity and at its heart, the Christ Child. Again, we are invited to consider how Jesus comes to us in littleness and in a way that hardly seems worth mentioning – born in a stable.  He is the Child-Saviour, cradled in a manger, who becomes for us bread to be eaten.  Like the celebration of Eucharist in Juárez and at Glengarda, and my visit with my friend at St. Paul’s, the nativity invites us into Christ’s fragility, a kind of diminishment in which He is entrusted to us and we, in turn, become for others food that heals.

Palliative Care a Top Priority For CHAS

At the December 3rd, 2025, Board of Directors’ meeting, CHAS set palliative care as a top priority. While continuing to be vigilant in our response to assisted suicide, palliative care, understood through the lens of the Eucharist, will now be our primary focus.

The entry point for Catholics into every matter that defines our faith is the Eucharist.

Echoing the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (11), the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch (CCC 1324).”

Therefore, the healing ministry of Jesus Christ, CHAS support for palliative care, mental health ministry, and indeed, our opposition to medically-provided death through “MAiD” can be summed up in a single word: Eucharist.

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