Last year at this time, I was privileged to participate in the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana. I approached the event with a certain amount of trepidation, not knowing what to expect. However, I can say, looking back, that it was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life and certainly renewed my passion for the Holy Eucharist.
I say renewed because I recognize that I have always loved the Holy Eucharist from my earliest memories. I still call to mind the day of my First Communion as a second grader and even remember the rehearsal and making my First Confession the day before. Weekly, if not daily, Holy Mass has been important to me, a significant part of my 62 years of life. In spite of such a connection with our Risen Lord Jesus really present in the Eucharist, I am conscious of a certain taking for granted of this relationship.
And that is where my experience at last year’s Eucharistic Congress made a difference for me because I began to see that the Eucharist was a “much bigger” deal than I had contemplated up to that point in my life: In the moments when our Eucharistic Lord entered the Lucas Oil Stadium with its 70,000 person capacity to total literally breathtaking silence. Or when gathered for the Eucharistic liturgy within the same stadium and the Entrance, Recessional, and Communion processions would take at least 20 minutes, occasions which would normally drive a person stir crazy, and yet they became moments of a living profession of faith echoing the words of John 6: “Lord, to whom shall we go, you have words of eternal life. … You are the bread of life!” Or entering a nearby church jam-packed with individuals of all ages, including families, priests, religious, seminarians, etc., gathered to adore our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. All of these moments have led me to an even deeper appreciation of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in my life.
Yet, I write this column because I know how easy it is to become apathetic to those closest to us, not in an uncaring way, but more like as I stated before, by taking them for granted. And I fear that I see this laziness of belief more evidenced these days in a lack of taking time with our Eucharistic Lord at Mass and in prayer. This absence of time with the Lord is not just about not going to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, but even more by expecting one to be entertained when one’s goes to church — rather than engaging, that is, involving one’s mind, body, and heart in worship of God through the Eucharistic celebration or in times of prayer in our Lord’s Eucharistic presence.
In Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), we read: “The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. … By offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should also learn to offer themselves” (#48). This is why the communal “Great Amen” at the end of the Doxology of the Eucharistic Prayer and our own spoken “Amen” out loud at the reception of Holy Communion are so important. They are our assent to join ourselves to the sacrifice of Christ and to become what we receive — the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in today’s world.
Pope Leo XIV in his homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (22 June 2025) reflected on this transformation: “As Saint Augustine writes, Christ is truly ‘panis qui reficit, et non deficit; panis qui sumi potest, consumi non potest’ (Serm. 130, 2): He is bread that restores and does not run short; bread that can be eaten but not exhausted. The Eucharist, in fact, is the true, real, and substantial presence of the Saviour (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1413), who transforms bread into Himself in order to transform us into Himself. Living and life-giving, the Corpus Domini makes us, the Church herself, the Body of the Lord.”
This leads us to another important aspect of the Eucharist — the unity is meant to signify and promote within the Church, our Mother. Four years ago on July 16, 2021, Pope Francis issued the Apostolic Letter, Traditiones Custodes. In it, he noted that “The path of the Church must be seen within the dynamic of Tradition, which originates from the Apostles and progresses in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit’ (DV 8). A recent stage of this dynamic was constituted by Vatican Council II where the Catholic episcopate came together to listen and to discern the path for the Church indicated by the Holy Spirit. To doubt the Council is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council, and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church.” This being said, in the same letter, Pope Francis deplored the fact that “in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortion.”
As the 2004 Instruction, Redemptionis Sacramentum, of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments noted, “The Mystery of the Eucharist ‘is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured.’ On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free rein to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved, and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the Living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal … but are detrimental to Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accord with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God.”
In his first message, Urbi et Orbi (to the City and the World) Pope Leo XIV proclaimed: “Let us move forward, without fear, together, hand in hand with God and with one another! We are followers of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs Him as the bridge that can lead us to God and His love. Help us, one and all, to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, joining together as one people, always at peace.” The source of this God-given mission is the Holy Eucharist! During these summer days, let us take the opportunity to encounter the Risen Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist building greater unity with God and with one another. Thank you, Jesus, for your indescribable gift!”
