A Life Turned Around - Eucharistic Revival Enters Year of Mission

A Life Turned Around – Eucharistic Revival Enters Year of Mission
 
When 60,000 Catholics converged on Indianapolis in prayer, worship and discernment this past July, it may have appeared to some as a sort of closing act. After all, it’s difficult to imagine a more dramatic end to the National Eucharistic Revival effort, which officially commenced on Corpus Christi Sunday, 2022. Like any authentic encounter with Christ, however, the Eucharistic Congress was also a beginning. Just as we turn to the Eucharist for hope and nourishment, especially amid our human suffering, so, too, the Eucharist sends us forth to seek, encounter and respond to the “suffering flesh of Christ in others.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 24)
 
It's fitting, then, that the Revival has now entered a Year of Mission, which runs through the remainder of 2024 and concludes the following June at the celebration of Pentecost. For those committed to global, intercultural and social mission, the current moment in the US Church is an opportunity, invitation and imperative to witness and proclaim the missionary heart of the Eucharist, Christ’s giving of himself to, for and with the entire world. As Pope Francis preached at the Solemnity of Corpus Christi back in 2015, “When we take and eat that Bread, we are associated into the life of Jesus, we enter into communion with him, we commit to achieve communion among ourselves, to transform our life into a gift, especially to the poorest.”
 
The People of God long to encounter this message now more than ever. In the month leading up the National Congress, Vinea Research published a study exploring the complicated relationship many US Catholics have with the Eucharist. Per Catholic News Agency, the report found that 51% of Catholics who only seldomly attend Mass still express belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For Catholics who attend Mass weekly, this number jumps to 81%. While far more encouraging than the 2019 Pew Survey which seemed to indicate much lower rates of Eucharistic belief, the results highlight perhaps even more confounding questions for the Church today. For instance, why would someone who believes that Christ is present in Eucharist only “seldomly” seek the encounter that presence within the liturgy? And what are the fruits of that encounter? Do we see 81% of weekly Mass goers exiting the parish doors and, as the final blessing impels us, proclaiming the Gospel with their very lives?
 
During a panel discussion at the National Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago put it this way: “[I]f there is a crisis of faith in the church today, it is not so much that people do not believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, but it’s that people do not fully understand and believe what it means for Jesus to have risen from the dead…” For Cupich, as for the Church, what the Eucharist “means” has everything to do with deepening our encounter with God and others. “[W]henever we celebrate the Eucharist,” he explains, “we gradually more fully participate in the dying and rising of Christ, gradually become Christians, gradually become freer to take up the mission of Christ, which is our baptismal calling.”
 
Put simply, many Catholics today may recognize that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, but do not always know how to respond…or even that the Holy Spirit invites them to do so. This is why the witness and wisdom of all missionary communities—be they religious congregations, lay organizations and associations, dioceses or parishes—are vital to renewal in the Eucharist and, more broadly, to inviting and inspiring all people recognize, deepen and live out of an ongoing encounter with Christ. As theologian and author Megan McKenna explains in Rites of Justice, her seminal work connecting the sacramental life of the Church with living witness, “Discipleship is a life turned around, focused on the kingdom and expressed in love and ritual.” 
 
At the upcoming annual conference of the United States Catholic Mission Association, we will explore and reflect on what it means to respond to the sacrifice and promise of Christ in the Eucharist today. Robert Ellsberg, author and publisher of Orbis Books, will reflect on the life and witness of Servant of God Dorothy Day, whose work to accompany, serve and advocate alongside the poor and vulnerable flowed from and to a rich liturgical and sacramental life. Diane Huggins, president of the board of directors for the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas, will discuss the interplay between Eucharistic Adoration and global solidarity. And Father Abdon Rwandekwe, SJ, will reflect on the Eucharist, mission and reconciliation as both an expert in organizing and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.
 
In that same Corpus Christi homily, Pope Francis famously described the Eucharist as “the school of solidarity and charity,” noting that, “[t[hose who are nourished by the Bread of Christ cannot remain indifferent to those who do not have their daily bread.” This understanding of the Eucharist is central to our missionary faith. Within the Eucharist, we see, on the one hand, Jesus’ entering fully into the reality of God’s people, including our human suffering. On the opposite hand, we discover a response marked not merely by alms or an act of service, but the radical and authentic charity of complete self-giving.
 
“When we take and eat that Bread,” the Holy Father asserts, “we are associated into the life of Jesus, we enter into communion with him, we commit to achieve communion among ourselves, to transform our life into a gift, especially to the poorest.” That is a journey we strive to travel as missionary disciples each day, and one which are called to invite others to discover, witness and proclaim more profoundly.
 
Kevin Foy is Executive Director of the US Catholic Mission Association.