Gulf Pine Catholic

14 Gulf Pine Catholic • August 16, 2024 NEC24 Day 2 Daytime From page 9 Hundreds of high school youth participated in a session focused on the human ache and longing for something more -- an ache that can only be filled by Jesus. Pete Burds, the vice president of mission for NET Ministries who led the event, told youth that Jesus is “desiring to be in relationship with you” -- and urged them to not pass up that invitation. He shared a personal experi- ence from high school, when he felt an ache for something more and went to Eucharistic adoration. There he felt for the first time a “heart-to-heart connection with Jesus Christ.” He said this encoun- ter spurred a desire for involve- ment in the church community, the sacrament of confession and regu- lar Sunday Mass. “Does the Eucharist bring me to believe and truly feel that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ?” asked Marilyn Santos, associate director of the Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, at a breakout session in Spanish about what it means to be a Eucharistic peo- ple. “Does it urge me to go out toward the poor and marginalized? Does it help me recognize in other people the body of Christ?” she asked the room, which was filled beyond its capacity like the previ- ous breakout session in Spanish. “The Eucharist nourishes me but also challenges me,” Santos said, calling people to be Eucharistic missionaries. She added that the Eucharist celebrates and renews the relationship God has with His people and it helps people to love everyone, “even those who are hard to love.” Santos asked the audience to remember the first time they fell in love and how they wanted to be with their beloved all the time and wanted to learn more about them. “That’s evangelization,” she said, encountering and falling in love with God. The Eucharistic Congress offered two breakout sessions -- both in Spanish and English -- about strategies to ensure that persons with disabilities can access the sacraments and that all “are made one in the body of Christ at the Lord’s table.” “We are all made in the image of God,” said Esther Garcia, who develops and coordinates com- munity outreach with dioceses and parishes to sup- port the meaningful participation of individuals with disabilities in the Catholic Church. She stressed that all in the church have the right to receive the sacra- ments, formation for the sacraments, and ongoing formation in the faith. Ministering to and with people with disabilities requires formation about the best ways to serve peo- ple with specific disabilities, so they can feel wel- comed and part of the church, particularly in Sunday Mass, she said, adding that it also means recognizing that people with disabilities “also have gifts to be able to serve” in the church. “When we are accompanying not only the person (with disabilities) but his family, we are doing the true mission of Christ,” she said. “We have to be intentional,” Garcia said. “We have to do it.” At an extended breakout session, Synod on Synodality delegates Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Bishop Flores and José Manuel De Urquidi of Dallas reflected on the relationship between the Eucharist and synodality. The session also included roundtable discussion in the style of “conversations in the spirit” that the global synod convened by Pope Francis -- which holds its second session in Rome this October -- is presenting as a model for dialogue and decision-making between pastors and the faith- ful. The session was moderated by Julia McStravog, the USCCB’s senior advisor for the synod. In his remarks, Cardinal Cupich described the Eucharist “as the school for becoming a synodal church.” “If there’s a crisis of faith in the church today, it’s 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 be risen from the dead,” he said. “Mass is not about making Jesus present for a moment, so we can worship Him as individuals. The focus has to be on what Christ is doing, and what happens to us as individuals and as a community -- namely, being transformed in order to take up more fully Christ’s mission of bringing justice, peace and love to the world.” Over at Indianapolis’ Holy Rosary Church, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone offered afternoon Mass with the 1962 Roman Missal , commonly called the Traditional Latin Mass, attended by 1,000 congress partici- pants, half in the church and anoth- er half in an overflow tent. He gave a 10-point homily on “ingredients for a Eucharistic revival recipe” that blended greater reverence at and preparation for Mass, along with a call for increased parish involvement in ministries that bring the Gospel to others, such as the Society of St. Vincent DePaul and the Legion of Mary. He also exhorted listeners to live out the Gospel in their homes, work and communities. In the meantime, thousands of congress-goers -- Catholics of an array of races, ethnicities, languages and traditions across America -- continued to tra- verse back and forth around Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center under the clear blue sky and hot sun. Across the convention center, the nearby St. John the Evangelist Church was packed to capacity, with a line extending out of the door of people waiting to adore Jesus in the Eucharist. The afternoon had a special time of adoration geared toward families, particularly young children who gathered in the front of church right in front of the Blessed Sacrament. They prayed and looked upon the Eucharist as a beautiful song to a simple uplifting melody enveloped those gathered. Two religious sisters had buckets of flowers, and children and adults took flowers and put them in vases placed around the altar. The conclusion of the afternoon’s activities gave way to preparations for the congress’s nightly reviv- al session, where well-known podcaster Father Mike Schmitz and Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart were expected to address the crowds at Lucas Oil Stadium beginning at 7 p.m. Contributing to this story were Lauretta Brown, Maria-Pia Negro Chin, Gina Christian, Michael Heinlein, Natalie Hoefer, Sean Gallagher, John Shaughnessy, Peter Jesserer Smith and Maria Wiering. A pilgrim receives Communion during morning Mass at Lucas Oil Stadium July 18 during the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. OSV News photo/Bob Roller