Catholic Voices recently spoke to Fr Laurence Lew OP, a Dominican friar, Promoter General of the Holy Rosary, and Rector of London's Rosary Shrine about the current pandemic. Fr Laurence teaches at Blackfriars college, Oxford University and is described by many as a 'media missionary' because of his use of photographs to preach the Gospel's beauty.

Catholic Voices (CV): How is lockdown treating you?

Well it's treating me quite well in many respects, since as a religious community we're quite fortunate to be together so we're able to pray together and spend more time actually in prayer and in reading and in contemplation. It's been busy in its own way. I'm still teaching in Oxford at Blackfriars, which is the Dominican hall, so I've been preparing some lectures in Mariology this term; I'm about to start teaching those. I'm also doing various things such as this podcast and other such online events. 

It's been a beautiful time of prayer in some ways, and a time of reflection, a time where I have intensified my prayer of the Rosary, but also a time to teach and to get in touch with people.

CV: This is a difficult time for catholics BECAUSE we’re without access to the sacraments. I think the worry that some Catholics are expressing is that this Time will be damaging for PeOples faith; will people come back to Mass when this is all over?

Well I think the instinct is right to lament the loss of access to the sacraments, to lament the fact that we cannot receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion, that is certainly tragic in many ways, and we cannot get around that or escape that, and by no means would I want to diminish that. We are meant to receive the Holy Eucharist in communion and all the reading I've been doing over the last few weeks has expressed that in so many ways, that we are encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, and every time we go to Mass and so on. And that goes back for centuries. Even the Council of Trent in the 16th Century talked like this, that we should go to Communion regularly, and that was at a time when people actually went quite infrequently.

So certainly I can understand where people are coming from, and in fact I'm quite heartened by the response that people long for the Eucharist and that they think the current situation is indeed a source of some suffering.

But I think at the same time as Christians we shouldn't really have any kind of anxieties: anxiety is something that the Lord doesn't want us to have, for example in his Sermon on the Mount he tells us why worry, because there are enough worries for the day, but to trust everything to him, to God's providence who doesn't even allow a sparrow to fall without knowing, whereas he has counted every hair on our head and so on. He knows who we are and what our needs are, and he knows what he's about.

So the gospel certainly has an invitation for us to trust in God, and to not worry unnecessarily, not to be anxious. And even in the prayers of the Mass there is a point just before communion when we pray to be freed from anxiety. I think that's right that we shouldn't be anxious, or we should have course feel that kind of sorrow which I've been hearing everywhere as well, for the fact that we cannot receive the sacraments as readily or as easily as we would want, and in some cases I understand it's become altogether impossible.

My first point from St Thomas Aquinas is that the sacraments are made for us, human beings who are a unique unity of body and soul, so we're corporeal and we're spiritual, body and soul. And because we are a unity of body and soul as human beings, we receive union with God through a bodily spiritual thing. In the Eucharist in fact there is a kind of hypostatic union where Christ is present in the very species of bread and wine. And so, this is something quite unique. God chooses to give himself to us and to communicate spiritually with us through something that is bodily, that we can take into our bodies, which is a real and spiritual food. And that's what the Eucharist is: it is most suited to us a spiritual and corporeal beings. And that's why there is rightly a longing to receive the Blessed Sacrament, the Host, the Eucharist; that is right.

However, there's a very important distinction that needs to be made, and looking through the Summa Theologiae at Part III question 73 article 3, I came across objection two, the second objection, which is very interesting. The second objection says that the sacrament is a kind of spiritual food but bodily food is requisite, meaning necessary, for bodily health. Therefore is this sacrament also necessary for spiritual health? And it wants to say let's make a comparison between bodily food and spiritual food.

St Thomas answers like this, he says the difference between bodily and spiritual food lies in this: bodily food, so the food that we eat and we buy from supermarkets and so on, is changed into the substance of the person nourished, it becomes part of us and consequently it cannot do what it is meant to do – it cannot avail for supporting life – unless it is partaken of, unless you eat it. So in other words bodily food is for our nourishment to keep us alive, and we must eat it otherwise we cannot have any life in us; we will literally die.

Spiritual food, St Thomas says, is different. Spiritual food changes man into itself, so whereas bodily food is changed into us, becomes part of us, with spiritual food we become part of it. And this is that beautiful line from St Augustine's Confessions, where St Augustine tells how he heard the voice of Jesus say to him 'You shall not change me into yourself as food of your flesh, but instead you, Augustine, will be changed into me.' Pope Benedict says through the Eucharist we are assimilated to Christ, and this is a spiritual thing, because God is spirit.

And this is why St Thomas then says one can be changed into Christ, and be incorporated into him – literally become part of his body. And he says this happens by mental desire, even without receiving this Sacrament. And consequently, he says, because of this the comparison between bodily food and spiritual food does not hold, so it's not such a simple thing to say 'well, we can just go to the supermarket and buy food nowadays, so why can't we just go to church and receive the Eucharist'. St Thomas says the comparison is not the same, because bodily food you need for your bodily life, but for your spiritual life to be sustained spiritually in Communion with Jesus, this can be done spiritually because God is spirit. 

Now, when I came across this response of St Thomas, I thought it was really quite magnificent, really very interesting, and not something that I'd given much thought to, to be honest. But his basic point is that's because we are incorporated into the spiritual person of God this is why it is spiritual food.

But why do we need the Eucharist in terms of actual bread and wine, which then become the body and blood of Christ? Why do we need this material substance? Why can we not therefore just pray at home and pray to God? Well, because it is proper to us as human beings with bodies to receive things bodily. So often in mediaeval theology, in good theology, you have an argument from what's called fittingness, meaning what in God's wisdom and providence is fitting, is therefore right and is proper? So it is right and proper that bodily creatures receive spiritual things in a bodily way, and that is why Christ instituted the sacraments. 

And further on, St Thomas also says that we should receive the sacrament because Christ commands this. He tells us to 'do this in memory of me' and tells us to eat and drink the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ. And because Christ commands it, we should do so in those times that the Church allows. So again in Thomas's way of speaking – he's always very careful, he respects on one hand the truth of scripture and the command of Jesus, and at the same time respects the Church which is the living community that safeguards the teaching of Jesus. So that's why he also says we can receive the Eucharist – and we should, as Jesus tells us, but according to the seasons and times and the precepts of the Church. 

We tend to talk nowadays in terms of individual human rights, and people might well say, well I have a right to the sacrament, but you'll never hear that kind of talk in St Thomas. We want to receive the sacrament firstly because Jesus tells us to. He has the right as God to make these demands or requests of us, and the only right we have is one of obedience to the Word of God, obedience to the living Word, Jesus Christ, obedience in that sense to the mystical body of Christ – the Church and its hierarchy. 

CV: we are in extraordinary times, but how can Catholics avoid seeing spiritual Communion as a poor substitute and see it as a way in which Christ is trying to equip us for mission? 

 There are two things I want to talk about. Firstly, again what is wonderful in reading the theology of St Thomas and the theology of the Church Fathers is that again and again Thomas makes it clear that in what we now call spiritual communion (Thomas doesn't use that phrase – he calls it the 'mental desire' to receive God) you receive the same effect as from receiving the Eucharist into your body, into your mouth. He says for example 'all are bound to eat the Eucharist at least spiritually, because this is to be incorporated in Christ'.

No, spiritual eating comprises the desire or yearning to receive this sacrament, and we certainly have seen among many good Catholics at this time an increase in their desire and yearning to receive the sacrament. I mean in that very action alone, that very desiring for the sacrament is the work of God's grace.  Can we not discern that? The desire for God, the desire for prayer, the desire for union with God doesn't come by our own wills; it's not caused by me. It is caused by the work of the holy spirit in our hearts, it is caused by grace. 

I think to fail to recognise that this is a sign of the divine indwelling is a real shame, because God is so much active in all this, and because we're all so fixated on what we have been accustomed to we fail to see how God is acting right now, and how he is very much present. 

Now, Thomas in this third part of the Summa, question 18 number 11,  he is distinguishing between the spiritual eating that is necessary – he says all are bound to eat at least spiritually – and then he distinguishes the spiritual reading from the sacramental eating, when he says a man cannot be saved without desiring to receive this Sacrament. Now a desire would be vain, except it were fulfilled when opportunity presented itself. But the opportunity, he says, comes by the precepts of the Church, and there are fixed times for fulfilling Christ's command.

Now, what is really quite interesting about all this, and we don't think about it very often but in my reading I've seen it come up again and again, is that it's very, very important to prepare to receive the Eucharist, to prepare spiritually to stir up the desire for the Eucharist. In fact the Church teaches that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is all about stirring up the desire to receive Holy Communion at Mass, to receive the Eucharist.

And I think that, well certainly in my own life I've often forgotten that. You know receiving the Eucharist every day, celebrating Mass daily even as a priest becomes almost like a routine, it's something that we do, and we don't often prepare. I think I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that when you go into a sacristy somewhere, especially when there's a group of priests at a big Mass, everyone's sort of chatting, or they're not really recollected because, oh yeah, we go to Mass, everyone knows what they're doing, we're just about to celebrate Mass. But we actually need to be spiritually prepared so as to stir up this desire for union with God. 

And so St Thomas and all the other spiritual masters that I've been reading have said the same thing, that people should recollect and gather before Mass, should prepare for Mass and should prepare for Holy Communion. And in some circumstances they should even voluntarily fast from receiving the Eucharist so as to increase their desire for the Eucharist, because without that desire, that yearning to receive Jesus, then merely receiving the Eucharist sacramentally doesn't avail to very much. Why? Because we're not disposed properly for receiving Communion with Jesus.

So again I think that this period of enforced fasting from receiving sacramental communion is a work of God, if we allow God to do his thing, if we allow God to stir up that desire for him. And we can help that, I think, by reading more theology – spiritual theology – about these matters, about the Eucharist, and deepening our appreciation of the Mass and so on. All that can be very very fruitful for later on when we do get to receive the Eucharist sacramentally at Mass, but here at the moment we can certainly deepen our spiritual reception of the Eucharist by yearning and desiring God and asking for him to come into our lives. 

CV: Have you Been asked ‘what do priests know about going without the sacraments?’ 

Well, you often hear something similar being said when priests and popes and bishops teach about marital life: who are these celibate men to tell us about our marital life and what happens in our bedrooms? Who are the priests to tell us these things? Well, as St Augustine put it very well: 'For you I am a bishop, but with you I am a Christian.' And so, everything that pertains to the spiritual life as a Christian, I think we hold in common as your brothers and sisters. You know a priest is not just a spiritual father, but he is first and foremost a Christian with you. 

In the first place the question I ask is: Why does the priest how to receive the Eucharist every day – why does he have to celebrate the Mass? Because some people have been saying to me, 'Couldn't the priest not receive the Eucharist at this time out of solidarity with the laity, so they can understand what they are going through?' And I can see that this suggestion has some kind of appeal but it fails to recognise, I think, what is actually happening when the priest offers Mass and receives the Eucharist.

Firstly the Council of Trent reminds us that when the priest says Mass, the entire Church is involved. Masses are to be considered as truly Common, meaning something that everyone is present at, partly because the people communicate spiritually but partly also because they are celebrated by a public minister of the Church not for himself only but for all the faithful who belong to the body of Christ. This is the teaching of the council of Trent session 21.

The reason why this is important is because when the priest celebrates Mass first of all he is doing a sacrificial act of Christ, he's reenacting the sacrifice of Calvary and it benefits the entire Church, which is why the Bishops have instructed the priests that they must celebrate mass every day. And I think that some priests have wanted to prove – as it were to show – that they're doing this, by rushing to livestream their Masses and so on. This is a good instinct: they want to share that reality with the people and they have the technology today to do that.

But whether or not the Mass is livestreamed – and many, many, many Masses are not livestreamed – these Masses are celebrated and each Mass contains innumerable graces for the good and benefit of the Church. So the priests are very aware that they are doing this because it is their duty to do this for the people. As Augustine says 'for you I am a bishop', so I would say 'for you I am a priest – I am doing this good work of offering the Eucharist for you'. 

No why do I then have to receive the Eucharist, and why can't I just in solidarity withhold the Eucharist from myself? Well if a priest doesn't receive a host that is consecrated in that Mass, and if he doesn't receive from the chalice – if he doesn't drink the precious blood that is consecrated at that same Mass – then the priest will not have celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass at all. In other words the sacrifice is not consummated, the sacrifice is not accomplished, and the Mass therefore is not being celebrated; it becomes just a ritual, a kind of ceremony, but it's not the sacrament of the Mass being celebrated.

Sometimes priests forget this, because you can have a concelebrated Mass where there are many priests celebrating and then they somehow run out of hosts that are consecrated, and then they go to the tabernacle. Well, those hosts in the tabernacle were consecrated at a different Mass, so any concelebrating priest who receives from the tabernacle does not actually celebrate the sacrifice for himself in that Mass. You see how important it is, then, that the priest must consume the host and the precious blood consecrated in that Mass in order for the Mass as a sacrifice to have happened.

That's why however well-intentioned it is to say to a priest, ‘Maybe you could not receive Communion or not celebrate the Mass,’ I think that that's a mistake because it means that the one thing that the priest can do to improve the current situation, which is to call down the graces of the sacrifice of Calvary upon the Church, is the one thing you're telling him not to do.

CV: I imagine that there are in fact somE INSTANCES of solidarity, such as not being abLe to RECEIVE to the Sacrament of Confession if you're on holiday?

Well, a priest who lives alone – many of our priests live in isolation – he can't go to Confession. And even for a priest who is not in a lockdown situation, sometimes it can be very hard for priests if you think of them, not necessarily in big cities like London where we're very fortunate to have Confession offered by many churches including the cathedral of course, but in many parts of the country in big countries it's very hard for priests to get Confession. So it's not as though priests don't know what it's like to be unable to access the Sacrament. There is one sacrament where the priest does need someone else; he needs the ministry of another priest, and that can be very, very hard to find in some situations.

I've been in situations like that, for example when I'm in Malaysia which is a Muslim country – that's where my family's from – and visiting my family. I don't find it easy to get around the city of Kuala Lumpur. It's a bit easier now because they now have the equivalent of Uber so I can actually grab a car and get to church, but otherwise I can say Mass at home. I live in a non-Catholic household – my family's not Catholic – so if I do say Mass it's just for myself, and as I say I do this every day whilst I'm on holiday because I'm conscious that I'm doing something for the good of the whole universal Church.

Now, at the same time, during my two-week holiday I'm able to say Mass but I'm not able to go to Confession quite as easily, and I am always very conscious of that, always very conscious that there are times when we find it hard to get to the sacraments as well. And it constitutes a kind of suffering.

But, this is why I think, you know in the history of the Church, which is a 2,000-year history now, and in the wisdom of God's providence, the Lord provides for us in these extraordinary or difficult situations. I mean, right back to the earliest days of the Church there are provisions for what we should do when we cannot access the sacraments because of times of persecution, in the early Church for example, and even now throughout the world where there are persecutions of Christians it is difficult to get to the sacraments.

Or where there are not sufficient priests around, or where the country is so big, the continent so wide that priests cannot be everywhere and providing the sacraments as readily and as often as they would like. There are situations both in the past and in the current time, regardless of the pandemic, where Christians – where Catholics – have not been able to access the sacraments as regularly as we can.

CV: This issue of being without the Mass raises a Tension between the individual and the communal understanding of PARTICIPATION and RECEPTION of communion.

It's really interesting. These tensions exist because of our human natures, of who we are as human beings. We are – bodily speaking – individuals but our union is spiritual. Human beings experience this tension because we are this fascinating unit of body and soul. And so this bodily individuality we have our own autonomy, but at the same time through Holy Communion, and through the grace indeed of Baptism, we are incorporated, literally made part of the body of Jesus Christ, the Church.

St Paul of course very famously is the one who first in Scripture talks about the Church as a body, and he tries to express to the early Christians what this unity as a body looks like. He uses the human body and he very effectively says the eye cannot say to the ear 'I do not need you' and the ear cannot say to the left foot 'I do not need you'. At the same time he says when one part of the body is hurt – let's say you stub your toe – your whole body hurts. And when one part of your body rejoices – let's say your stomach because of your taste buds – your whole body rejoices.

It's a very powerful image, and I think that St Paul is using this imagery – obviously he's inspired by the Holy Spirit to do this – because he wants to express this great reality that can be very difficult to grasp, one that we are on one hand individuals, but on the other hand we are deeply and fundamentally united and in communion with one another through our communion in God.

The current situation of this pandemic gives us space in fact to think more deeply about our ecclesiological questions. What does it mean to be a church? What does it mean to be incorporated into the body of Christ? And we use these phrases, we say we have received the body of Christ, but one of the most ancient formulas for receiving Communion is 'God's gift for his holy people' – 'receive the gift for his holy people' – and this idea that we're receiving something that makes us a union, makes us in communion with one another as well as with God. 

I think Pope Benedict in his letter Sacramentum Caritatis brings out all this very beautifully, where he explains at great length in the final part of that document what he calls 'Eucharistic consistency'. When we talk about receiving the Eucharist, it's all very personal and devotional. Yes, it's private in some sense, but he says that's not enough: the Eucharist by its very nature drives us to work with one another, to be in communion with one another, to care about one another, and to care about the poor particularly is how it's talked about. 

And the Catechism says the same thing too – I was just looking at that yesterday.  So this eucharistic consistency, as Pope Benedict called it, is something we could think more deeply about. What does the Eucharist really do for me, and make me become? It makes me missionary, it makes me evangelical, and so on, but it also makes me care about the body of Christians, about my fellow Catholics, about the needs of other human beings, and so on. There's a wonderful union of ideas here: I think that can be brought out if we think about it carefully at this time.

CV: One of the other tensions that arises Is around the way we respectfully engage with JUDGEMENTS made By civil or ecclesiastical authorities. most Catholics, especially in the UK, have been respectful and understanding that the public celebration of Mass is not possible, but certainly an area where there is a bit more debate is the question of whether churches ought to be open or not, even for private prayer. How do we respond CONSTRUCTIVELY, conscious of obedience on the one hand, and Not shutting down debate on the other ?

Personally, I would say that as a priest it's always good to be challenged by the people we serve. And I say this because, as I've said, I am a priest for you but I'm a brother with you and a fellow Christian. And as fellow Christians we should be able to communicate, and we must. Perhaps this becomes something more obvious as a Dominican living religious life: we're quite accustomed to sharing our views, and we do differ enormously. We have different opinions, and everyone differs when it comes to prudential decisions: prudential decisions are a question of what is best to do in what particular way at this particular time.

Prudence is the virtue of moral maturity, it comes with experience, and so when we are in situations which are literally unprecedented we have very little experience to help us, to help us to navigate the waters of how to go forward. Traditionally we would look to the elders of a society because they've experienced more in life. I come from an Asian background, and we always respect our elders because we believe that they know more, they have a stored up wisdom from their age, so that they know what to do in situations like this that the young ones have never seen before.

But at the current time it seems that these are fairly new situations, which is why people have been looking at history books, people have been looking at archaeology, digging deep, as Cardinal Nichols says, into our tradition, into our 2,000-year history, to see how we might behave, how we might respond to the current wave and how we might move forward. Someone's got to make a decision, just as in a priory like mine all the brothers might opinions and might have prudential ideas, but at the end we leave it to the prior to make a decision and we abide by that whether we would agree with it or not. And so too we must learn in obedience to abide by the decisions of our bishops. 

Now the problem is when we start to impute motivations to our leaders and we think, 'oh well, they're obviously doing this because they're secular modernists anyway, and they're acquiescing to the demands of the government' or whatever. Well, I would say that Christian charity requires of us, or invites us at least, to be circumspect about making judgements about people's moral motivations. ‘Judgement is mine' says the Lord, and if any Christian or our leaders behave in a way which at their heart betrays the Gospel, then we leave it to the Lord to make that judgement in his good time. But charity requires of each of us Christians to assume the very best of our leaders, the very best of others, and especially of our fellow Christians, and to assume that they're doing the very best in very, very difficult situations. That's what I would say firstly. 

We are each in control of our own moral lives, therefore conscious of the Lord's commandment that we should love one another, let us ensure – at least for ourselves – that we are behaving lovingly towards others. That's the first thing I would say. 

The second term in this regard is that having said all that, there are very charitable ways in which we can review the situation. Everybody is currently having to review the situation, whether they are scientists or politicians or secular civil leaders, and I think the Church likewise has to review the situation.  The Holy See issued a communique in which it said that it was going to review the situation and see how they could begin to return to ordinary services. I think the Holy Father is not thereby signalling that everybody has to follow suit, but the Holy Father is certainly signalling – and has been signalling for quite some time – that this is not a situation we should be satisfied with.

So it's right that people are dissatisfied with the closure of our churches, and as I said I think that too is a movement of the Holy Spirit that people long for the opening of our churches, and perhaps for far too long we've been complacent about our churches being around. It's like the post office that nobody uses, but they want it to be there and when the post office closes everybody gets very shocked, and the community rallies around but it's too late. I've often thought this when I look at how empty our churches are. St Dominic's here in London, the Rosary shrine, is a huge church, and it's open every day for twelve hours from 7am to 7pm – this is in normal conditions – but this huge church sees very few people coming in, and on a Sunday it doesn't seem any people either. Not enough anyway to warrant such a big building!

I know that the Holy Spirit is at work, I have no doubt about that, and I believe and I pray that the Holy Spirit will stir up in souls a greater desire for God, and a desire for the opening of the churches, and a desire to pray and worship God. But before that can happen, we must trust that God is at work in this current difficult situation. I have no doubt at all personally that no matter how bad circumstances become, whether for us as individuals or whether as a society or as a civilisation, I have no doubt whatsoever that God is in control, that his providence is guiding all things – he governs all things and he permits any kind of evil at all only in order to bring about an even greater good.

And God's creativity exceeds the imagination of mankind. Nobody, nobody could have imagined the redemption of the world by God's incarnation. Nobody could imagine that God could become man and then suffer death on Calvary, crucified as a criminal in order to save us from our sins, nobody. So God has this wonderful creativity in how he will bring good out of evil, and he is no doubt acting in this moment.

This is a moment of trust in divine providence, and God is teaching us – if we all listen – to trust in him, which is why I think if we can manage it in our own home situations (I realise that not everyone can because homes can become very chaotic if there are lots of kids at home!) then this time of isolation, of lockdown and so on, is an invitation for interiority, to pray, to really pray, and to discover the presence of God in our lives. 

There's a beautiful quotation that I just want to share from St Teresa of Avila, who is one of the great spiritual masters and doctors of the church. She says, 'Remember how important it is for you to have understood this truth: that the Lord is within us, and that we should be there with him in contemplative prayer.' The Lord is within us. Jesus Christ himself said 'The Kingdom of God is within you.' And so interiority, this going within to find God within, is something that we can do now in this quiet moment.

And that would mean as well letting go of the busyness that we try to fill this time with, you know, with endless activities online. In fact I think we shouldn't squander this time, but discover through prayer and through reading more deeply into our theology and into our history how God is at work and has always been at work in our lives, and in all situations, including the terrible disastrous situations that we find ourselves in. 

CV: are there any final remarks or final ways you think we can make this time more profitable for ourselves spiritually?

Yes, certainly. Pray. And read – read theology, that is. Can I recommend a good spiritual theology whether it's Teresa of Avila, or I recommend someone called Louis of Granada. Louis of Granada was a Dominican who was well loved by many of the great spiritual masters, including Teresa of Avila. I think that we can benefit from reading him. Certainly I've found enormous benefit. Reading about the spiritual life, reading about the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives right now, because what I think we're being invited to discover more and more the privilege and dignity of being a Christian through baptism. We're being invited to discover what Baptism does for us. 

There's this wonderful line from a Spanish Dominican I was reading who wrote in the 1920s – called Mystical Evolution it's about the spiritual life, and about our union with God through grace. He says, 'Christians are a new and heavenly race of men of divine lineage, deified men, the offspring of God, sons of God the Father, incorporated into the Word made flesh, animated by the Holy Spirit, men whose lives and conversations ought to be altogether heavenly and divine. Since the understanding of this sublime dignity lies dormant in so many Christians, they follow indifference or coldness in their lives and a small regard for their dignity.'

He's writing in the 1920s – imagine! – and he's stirring people up to say 'Remember the dignity that comes to you through your Baptism, through the grace of God who comes to you through the Holy Spirit.' He says the grace of God comes to us through the communication of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth who resides fully in Jesus and who is his spirit. This communication of the Spirit justifies, dignifies, renews, and sanctifies us, and he asks how are we to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit, this grace: firstly through Baptism, but after that by prayer. Just pray.

And for this he goes to Louis of Granada, who says, 'One of the principal means for obtaining grace is to please for it, to pray for it.' He says: 'As St John Chrysostom says, God will not deny assistance to those who ask for it because he himself inspires us to ask.'

Now, these graces that all these spiritual writers are talking about are quite distinct from what they call sacramental grace, which comes from the Eucharist and the other sacraments. So at this time when we are deprived of the sacraments we should not think that we have been somehow abandoned by God, or that we are unable to receive Jesus, or that Jesus is not with us, or that the Holy Spirit isn't with us. Far from it!

Now is the time, the graced time, to discover the dignity of our Christian Baptism, and the character of Baptism – character means this abiding situation, this abiding principle that underlies our lives as Christians, which is that through Baptism we have been united to Jesus, we are incorporated into his body.

Yes, the Eucharist gives new life to that unity, the Eucharist strengthens that unity, the Eucharist nourishes our spiritual life; that is all very true, and I would never want to get away from that. However, Christians and Catholics throughout the ages recognised that they could go for very long periods without the Eucharist, without receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion, because they recognised at the same time the abiding presence of the Blessed Trinity in the soul, what is called the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that was what they needed most of all, hence the spiritual writers say: pray. 

St Teresa of Avila says your body has a hidden guest and that guest is Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Father: the Blessed Trinity is your guest. So she says, 'Go into your soul and welcome your guest, and make a room for him – make space for him, purify your soul to receive him.' She's talking about all this quite independently of receiving the Eucharist. She's talking about the abiding presence of God in the soul, so I think that we could certainly read about this, and we would benefit a lot from reading these things. 

I really do believe this is a time to discover the hidden treasures of grace that are ours already through Baptism.