Vatican City (CNS) — Pope John Paul II said greater Christian devotion to the Eucharist can help heal a world torn by terrorism and racked by poverty.

In a document offering spiritual guidelines for the “Year of the Eucharist,” the pope called for more intense public witness of the faith. As the center of the Christian experience, the Eucharist should have a transforming power that carries beyond Sunday Mass and into daily life, he said.

The 31-page letter, titled “Stay With Us, Lord,” was written to launch the eucharistic year that will run until October 2005.

The Eucharist, the pope said, furnishes Christians with spiritual energy and a plan for living. It is the ideal way for the faithful to identify with Christ’s message and his saving sacrifice, which should in turn have an impact on peace and justice issues in the wider society, he said.

“The lacerated image of this world, which has begun the new millennium with the specter of terrorism and the tragedy of war, calls on Christians more than ever to live the Eucharist as a great school of peace,” he said.

 

Eucharistic Congress focuses on faith’s center

By Patty Gayes
Contributor

Martyrs lay down their lives, missionaries travel far from home, virgins have moral fortitude, priests and religious have integrity, husbands and wives live in a spiritually-based marriage. The strength to do all these things, said Cardinal Francis Arinze, flows from the Eucharist, “the fountain from which all life flows.”

Cardinal Arinze, the Vatican’s prefect for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke in Guadalajara at the 48th International Eucharistic Congress, held October 10-17. Cardinal George was among 36 cardinals, about 250 bishops, thousands of priests and religious, and more than 14,000 laity from 87 countries. Pope John Paul II transmitted an address via television at the Congress’s closing.

“To nourish ourselves on him means to receive the very life of God, opening us to the logic of love and sharing,” the pope said.

In Guadalajara, the excitement of the event was multiplied by the fervor of the Mexican peoples’ faith. The Congress included two processions, one commemorating a Holy Day for the Mexican state of Jalisco, to honor the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Zapopan, a local village. The other procession followed a public outdoor Mass. Jesus himself led the procession, present in the Eucharist contained in a monstrance ringed by a 20-foot golden halo. More than 3 million people are estimated to have participated in both processions, with countless others lining the streets and joining the marchers in constant song and cheers.

“Participating in the procession made me so very grateful to be a Catholic,” said Sandy Klaud of Chicago. Klaud, of St. Thomas More Parish, was one of eight people on a pilgrimage sponsored by the Real Presence Association, a Chicago-based national organization.

In addition to the processions, the congress included Mass, benediction and catechesis, including a talk by Cardinal George.

A Eucharistic Congress is a gathering to develop a more profound understanding of the Eucharist. The first International Eucharistic Congress was held in 1881 in Lille, France. In the Chicago area, St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein hosted the 28th International Congress in 1926.

Such Congresses emphasize that the Eucharist remains at the heart of the church.

“God is doing a new thing in our church; we don’t need to despair,” said Phyllis Smit of Alberta, Canada. “It seems like people have emphasized doing works of charity, and become so busy doing that, they’ve forgotten about prayer and about adoration of our Lord. I think God is bringing us back to that.”

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana spoke on that theme, saying that prayer is like the respiration of the soul.

“Many people are in need of artificial respiration,” Cardinal Turkson said. “We must pray. Parents must teach their children to develop a prayer life. We must pray before the Blessed Sacrament. This is what Christ wants us to do, to come before him and listen, as he says in his words, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary.’”

The church is “re-centering,” said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec, who will host the next International Eucharistic Congress in 2008. “The church needs to go back to the basics, as Pope John Paul II has been insisting during the past several years, which is why he is emphasizing the Eucharist by proclaiming a ‘Year of the Eucharist.’ The Jubilee was also a Eucharistic Year, but he wanted to re-emphasize the fact that the Eucharist is the real presence of Christ.”

The Year of the Eucharist closes next October with a Synod of Bishops in Rome, Cardinal Ouellet said. “This will not be a time to theorize but to determine practically how we can help our parishes and communities bring the Eucharist into their lives,” he said.

In the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Year of the Eucharist will be observed in a variety of ways. The Real Presence Association held a Eucharistic Conference Oct. 23 at Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace, with St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, Bishop Basil Meeking, Bishop Joseph Perry, and Father Edmund McCaffrey.

The archdiocese is planning a speaker series on different aspects of the Eucharist, with details to be announced, and an April 2 Day of Reflection for Eucharistic Ministers, with keynote talk by Cardinal George.

Pope John Paul II offered some suggestions for Catholics to observe this year, in an Apostolic Letter on October 8, including having parish communities study the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and a deepening commitment to eucharistic adoration.

Discussion groups in Guadalajara said the church could emphasize the Eucharist’s importance by catechizing parents along with their children; helping adults become excited about their faith, so they will pass that excitement along to their children; encouraging priests to take a firm stand on proper reception of the Eucharist; and requesting that bishops ask each parish to begin perpetual adoration.

Most important, said Bishop Martin Igwa Uzoukwu of Minna, Nigeria, is that we pray for all of these things to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit.

One participant noted that instilling devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is key. In China, those who catechize Catholic teachings are persecuted, but in a curious twist of regulatory logic, Eucharistic adoration is deemed acceptable. “So in China, the major tool of catechesis is adoration, and churches are full of adorers,” the participant said.

In Mexico, where the culture is strongly Catholic, Eucharistic adoration is prevalent. Almost every parish in Guadalajara has Eucharistic adoration. The Nocturnal Adoration Society is also in nearly all churches, with society members and others offering prayers through the night. A major focus of nocturnal prayer is for vocations, and in Guadalajara alone, there are 900 young men currently in the seminary.

Cardinal George said adorers in the United States are also testifying to many graces received from adoration, including “conversions taking place, prayer answered, reconciliation in families, increases in priestly and religious vocations, and other favors.”

The resurgence of Eucharistic adoration is an example of a renewal led predominately by the laity, said Richard Guzior of the Real Presence Association.

“It is beautiful to see how lay people are asking, even demanding, the Church hierarchy to pass on faithfully what Jesus wanted, to become living Eucharist in the world,” said Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, a native of Jalisco, Mexico. “It was the dream of Jesus that we will become one, as he said in the Gospel of John: ‘May they be one as my father and I are one.’”

 

On the cover

Msgr. Ernesto Mandara of the Diocese of Rome holds up the Eucharist during Mass in the city’s Popolo Square Oct. 9. The diocese marked the start of the eucharistic year declared by Pope John Paul II with an outdoor Mass and procession through the streets of Rome.