Editor’s Note: Cardinal Raymond Burke joined Johnnette Benkovic Williams on EWTN’s Women of Grace, discussing several topics. In the excerpt below, the cardinal discusses his deep understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and how Catholics must be worthy to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord.

We are visiting with His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke. He’s given us a wonderful book. I really want to recommend this to you. It’s educational, it’s instructive, but it does something else, too. It will inspire you and lead you to a greater reverence in our Lord Jesus Christ. And you’re probably saying, “Well, Johnnette, I have a great reverence.” I know, but there’s always more, because we cannot exhaust the beauty and the wonder of this great gift. So, what is it called? It’s called Respecting the Body and Blood of the Lord: When Holy Communion Should Be Denied.

It’s a book that helps for us to understand why it is a scandal to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ — to the Church at large — when we are unworthy. In addition, and maybe even, I don’t know, equally as bad, maybe worse, is that it’s a sacrilege.

Your Eminence, we don’t have a right to receive Our Lord. It’s a privilege and a sacred trust, and we have to look at it that way. Take us into the canon law that speaks to this issue. You’re a canon lawyer. First of all, what is the Code of Canon Law? And what is the particular canon that applies to our discussion here?

Well, the Code of Canon Law is the collection of all of the discipline of the Church regarding the various aspects of the Church’s life, and it’s divided into seven books, and one of the books is on the sanctifying mission of the Church; and in that book, there are canons regarding the Holy Eucharist.

Canon 915 regards the ministry of the Holy Eucharist, where the minister is not to give Holy Communion to someone who publicly and obstinately gravely sins. And then Canon 916 is addressed to the recipient for the Communion, that the person should only approach to receive Holy Communion when they are properly disposed, which means that they’re in the state of grace, they’ve observed the Eucharistic fast, and are prepared, and that they have faith in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And these are very important canons.

This goes back to the time of St. Paul, the safeguarding of the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist. First of all, out of the respect that we must have for Our Lord; and you rightly have said: Holy Communion is a gift; it’s not a right. Our Lord offers himself to us, and how could we come before him to receive the gift of his own life and at the same time be doing things that are completely offensive to him?

He speaks in that same passage about the fact that we eat and drink a judgment upon ourselves. It can actually lead to illness and can lead to death.

That’s a very strong statement, and I think today, one of the causes of so many troubles that we have, so many evils in society is the loss of faith in the Holy Eucharist, because when we believe in the Holy Eucharist, when we believe that this is truly the Body, Blood and Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that indicates to us a way of life that we should be following the Lord in our daily life.

If we’re receiving him in Holy Communion, we receive the grace to lead a good and holy life; whereas, if we don’t believe that anymore — people follow this relativism, whatever they think or whatever is popular, the so-called politically correct approach — and so we end up with people in terrible situations of sin and violence and death. And I believe that restoring a fundamental faith and reverence for the Holy Eucharist will be transforming of every aspect of our life.

I don’t think that there’s any question about that. When we receive him worthily, there’s an efficacy to the sacrament. Obviously, this is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but there is an obligation on our part: one, to approach the sacrament worthily and, second, to have a fervency, a desire leaning into the sacrament so that the sacrament might come to fruition within us in the way that God desires it, which is nothing less than being conformed to him.

Exactly. If Christ is dwelling in us, if he’s given us his own Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity to nourish his life within us, what a difference that has to make in our daily life. ... A devotion that very much instills in us a strong sense of Christ’s presence with us, above all in the Holy Eucharist, is the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

And I remember a family, I was promoting [the devotion] in the Diocese of La Crosse, and a family, the parents wrote me a letter; they enthroned the Sacred Heart, and they wrote a letter saying that they had two teenage children, a boy and a girl, who were constantly fighting with each other, and it was very disruptive in the home.

They had this consecration, they had the instrument of the Sacred Heart in their home, consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and they notice that the two children weren’t fighting anymore.

And so the father asked the son, “Well, I noticed you’re not arguing and fighting with your sister anymore.” And the son said, “Well, when Jesus is in the house, you don’t act that way.”

All of this is to say, if Jesus is in me — which he is through the Holy Eucharist — that has to change the way I act. And if I have struggles to be good and holy, I have to call upon Our Lord, that I cooperate more with his grace.

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