Terri Lynn was sitting in Adoration one day when she felt a flash of inspiration. “The name ‘Singles of the Eucharist’ just popped into my head," she said in an interview with Aleteia. "Since it wasn’t my own thought, I thought it was something God was directing me to start.”
She began Singles of the Eucharist as an apostolate to bring singles who love the Blessed Sacrament together to evangelize with the Real Presence through the image of the Blessed Sacrament in the Monstrance.
She explained,
Wearing a pin, having a bumper sticker on your car, or the image on a shirt is helpful to inspire people one will meet to ask questions. It is often hard to start questions about the Catholic faith, so the image can help. To other Catholics, it will remind them of where their minds and hearts should be centered. The monstrance image is not well-known to those outside the faith, although Mother Angelica wore it as a necklace. That is still inspiring.
Lynn works full-time for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas as the Associate Director in the Office of Stewardship in Development for Planned and Legacy Gift Development. Singles of the Eucharist is her quiet passion project, a labor of love.
A beautiful discovery
But for years, Lynn would not have seemed like the person to start this apostolate. In fact, although she was raised Catholic, she didn’t even find out about Eucharistic Adoration until she was in her forties.
It’s a pretty amazing story. She said:
At the age of 42 a boyfriend told me about the Cursillo weekend, and I did not know it, but it was just what I had been looking for, as the single life was becoming an emotional rollercoaster. I found out about Adoration and God’s Divine Mercy that weekend, received lots of graces and from that point on began living the life of a “devout Catholic.” Before that, I really did not know what that meant.
Now that she had found out about Eucharistic Adoration, she fell totally in love with it. “Finding out that there was such a thing as Adoration where I could go and be with the Lord became my life,” she said. “Before that, I thought you had to die to be with Christ.”
A mission of love
Her mission for Singles of the Eucharist is simple and beautiful.
I just want single people to know they are not alone. As the Catholics Come Home video says, “in this confused and hurting world, it is good to know that some things remain, true, good, and strong”; that they have Christ and the Church to turn to. They are not alone. If they can find the Blessed Sacrament and receive the grace to believe in the Real Presence, their lives can be offered to God and their lives can have joy, and the world will be a better place.
Lynn’s timing in starting the apostolate seems providential in this time of desperately needed Eucharistic Revival. She hopes that the Singles of the Eucharist website can be a useful source of information, and as the group grows, members can come together and decide how to evangelize the Real Presence, individually and as a group.
Another goal is “coming together in stewardship of our gifts of treasure,” so that the apostolate can contribute meaningfully to charities that help the poor and the sick. She hopes that this can be another way to share the good news of the Real Presence.
Most of all, her hope in starting it is that “singles who are looking for something to do for the Church can find a way to serve their bishop and pastors through the activities of this group.”
The apostolate is about love for the Blessed Sacrament and the activities that flow from love for Christ. “It is to help singles find the love they don’t even know they are missing,” she said. “Then when they get it, it will change their lives for the better.”
