By Joel Padgett
Connecting Faith and Life
In the past few months, we experienced two generational events that took place within the Catholic Church in the United States. To start, our country witnessed its first-ever nationwide Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which saw four different routes cross the entire United States and convene upon the city of Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress. Secondly, the Congress itself was the first national one in 83 years and only the 10th ever in U.S. history. It gathered thousands of people from all over the country to a deep personal encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist!
After two such incredible events, it would be understandable to think that the Eucharistic Revival had reached its fulfillment. However, one would be seriously mistaken, because the conclusion of the National Eucharistic Congress was in fact a commissioning, that is, a sending forth to go “back to our communities across the country with renewed passion for Christ and filled with grace to share.”
Furthermore, the Congress launched us into a Year of Mission. The aim of which, according to its organizers, is “to form Catholics to live out of their Eucharistic encounters with Jesus and to send them as credible witnesses to the joy of the Gospel; to encourage centers of mission (parishes, dioceses, religious communities, apostolates, etc.) to continue providing opportunities for encounter that lead to a deeper Eucharistic identity and sustain a Eucharistic life.”
Mission has always been an integral aspect of the Eucharistic Revival from the get-go. At the beginning of the three-year Revival, Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, (chairman of the board of the National Eucharistic Congress, Inc.) described its purpose in this way: “The Church in the United States is responding to the bishops’ call for us to be healed, converted, formed, and unified by an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist — and then sent out on mission ‘for the life of the world’ (John 6:51). We are invited to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ, Our Lord, through the celebration of the Eucharist, so that we can be set on fire for the mission our Church needs so desperately.”
The connection between the Eucharist and Mission cannot be overstated. As St. Augustine once wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” In other words, we are made for God, and only in Him will we ultimately find meaning, purpose, fulfillment, peace, joy … everything that our heart truly longs for! Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is authentically to be found in the Catholic Church. Consequently, Jesus in the Eucharist is the answer to all the aches, pains and longings of this world, and every person within it. The treasure that we have been given is not to be “put under a bushel basket” (Matthew 5:15), but to be shared.
In Him is joy. In Him is healing. In Him is salvation. How can we not share this life-changing news with others (“gospel even means “good news”)! If I possessed a cure that could heal someone from a fatal illness, why would I not offer it? If I possessed a gift that was guaranteed to bring deep and lasting happiness to someone, why would I not share it with them? Christ is that cure. He is that gift. Do I believe it? Am I so convinced of it that I’m willing to take the risk of speaking Jesus’ name to those who might think less of me for doing so? If I struggle to believe it, let me turn to Him and pray, “Lord, increase my faith” (cf. Luke 17:5). If I fear rejection, let me turn to Him and pray, “Lord, give me strength,” and He will whisper in your heart, “You can do all things in me, who give you strength” (Philippians 4:13).