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The July 17-21 US National Eucharistic Congress was astounding and thrilling. Being one of more than 50,000 people gathered to praise the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament will launch thousands of vocations and holy hours.
But the highest hope for the Congress might be something more basic. The hope is that it will inspire a new dedication to Sunday Mass.
That’s what New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said at the first Mass of the Congress.
“My brothers and sisters to recover the centrality of Sunday Mass,” he told tens of thousands of participants, “has to be the resolve of this grand Eucharistic Congress.”
The importance of Sunday Mass was a theme that sounded again and again during the Congress, even as other forms of Eucharistic worship took center stage.
The opening night was dazzling, then profound.
I was right by the altar at the 50-yard line of the covered-over football field in the Indianapolis Colts’ stadium as the 10th National Eucharistic Congress got underway.
At one end of the field was a giant luminous stage with enormous screens lit up with graphics using the same technology Taylor Swift uses on her Eras Tour. But as the Eucharistic procession entered the stadium, tens of thousands of people went silent and dropped to their knees.
Bishop Andrew Cozzens, the organizer of the National Eucharistic Revival, placed the monstrance on the altar then, kneeling in front of it, said, “Lord, we want to give you the first words in our National Eucharistic Congress,” and the entire stadium went silent.
It was a breathtaking beginning, and we returned to that altar for nightly holy hours three times, each preceded by keynote speakers. It was there that I first heard Sunday Mass emerge as a theme.
The key player in most testimonies wasn’t Eucharistic adoration, but Sunday Mass.
There was, appropriately, a lot of stress on Eucharistic Adoration given at the Congress. But in the powerful testimonies given by speaker after speaker, it was most often Sunday Mass that made the difference in people’s lives.
First, Ken and Mary Ann Duppong, parents of Michelle Duppong, the Focus missionary whose canonization cause is underway, spoke of Sunday Mass being essential to their family’s faith. Then, Mother Olga, the Iraq-born religious foundress, shared testimonies of Eucharistic faith from her work with people in need including:
- “Mighty Quinn,” a child who beat cancer after becoming devoted to the Eucharist — and who demanded that a gift trip to Disneyland he received be scheduled around Sunday Mass.
- David, the son of a drug dealer and lifelong addict, who underwent a conversion marked by Sunday Mass.
- Jill, a mother dying of cancer, who had always dreamed of seeing her daughter walk down the aisle wearing her wedding veil, and got her wish before her death when her daughter was granted First Communion early on Easter Sunday, the basis for our Sunday Mass.
Later, Sunday Mass figured in the story of an alcoholic’s recovery and in the testimony of the parents of a child with Down Syndrome who were able to overcome great odds, they said, because “God gave us the strength, through the Eucharist, through Sunday Mass, to do his will.”
Again and again, the theme returned throughout the event: Sunday Mass is the expression of faith that brought people back from the brink.
This is exactly what St. John Paul II expected at the beginning of the 21st century.
In his 2001 Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the beginning of the New Millennium) St. John Paul II made promoting Sunday Mass a top priority for the Church.
“It is necessary,” he said, “to stress particularly the Sunday Eucharist and Sunday itself experienced as a special day of faith … the true weekly Easter.”
To show how serious he was, he made 2004 a Year of the Eucharist and in the 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (Church from the Eucharist) called Sunday Mass “fundamental for the life of the Church” and “drew particular attention to the Sunday Eucharist, emphasizing its effectiveness for building communion.”
Several speakers mentioned that Eucharistic faith took a hit during the Covid pandemic when Sunday Mass was unavailable. Cardinal Dolan said inattention to Sunday Mass is the major problem facing the Church today.
“Pope Francis has repeated, ‘No Eucharist no Church,’” he said. “No wonder the influence of Jesus seems diminished in his Church, when only 25% of those who claim him as Lord and Savior are faithful to him in our weekly family meal.”
To get a sense of how bad that truly is, consider that the Catechism says Catholics must attend Sunday Mass, and that “Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.”
Appropriately, the Congress culminated in a Sunday Mass at which papal delegate Cardinal Antonio Tagle delivered a message from Pope Francis, who hoped “that all participants of the Congress will be fully aware of the gifts be received from the heavenly food, and will impart them to others.”
Pray for the success of the National Eucharistic Congress — in the numbers of people we invite to Sunday Mass.
