Gulf Pine Catholic

Gulf Pine Catholic • August 16, 2024 17 Congress’s Day 3 invites Catholics to find God’s healing in the Eucharist, share it with others BY OSV NEWS INDIANAPOLIS ( OSV News ) -- “Sweet anointing, cleansing love, merciful healer, unending love.” Tony Meléndez sang to his gui- tar, telling the audience gathered at Lucas Oil Stadium July 19 for the National Eucharistic Congress’ Encounter session that Jesus can heal them. And he was living proof. The 62-year-old guitarist, who was born without arms and with a clubbed foot, talked about his life and how God used for His glory the differences that had caused his mother to cry for her baby after his birth. The seven surgeries that were required to correct his foot physi- cally optimized his ability to play the guitar with his feet, he said. Meléndez showed a video of play- ing in 1987 for Pope St. John Paul II, who kissed him and told him to share his gift with the world. He has since played in 45 countries. The third day of the national congress, held July 17-21 in Indianapolis, had as its theme “Into Gethsemane” -- and it saw wide encouragement for congress-goers to experience healing in the Eucharist and then to bring Jesus’ healing to others. “Healed people heal people,” said Mary Healy, a Scripture professor at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. She spoke about Jesus’ healings in Scripture and shared powerful examples of people living today who have been healed of serious medi- cal conditions through prayer. What Jesus did 2,000 years ago “He is still doing now, today, and He wants us to know it, and He wants us to experience it,” she said, adding, “the Lord wants His church to be healed people, set free, made whole, so that we can go out and be his instru- ments of healing.” The Cultivate impact session for families focused on healing through the sacraments. “Healing is an ongoing encounter with God’s love that brings us into wholeness and communion,” said Bob Schuchts, author and founder of the Tallahassee, Florida-based John Paul II Healing Center. “Every time we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we can say, ‘Jesus, heal this part of me that’s dead inside; this part that’s grieving; heal this relationship I have,’ and He answers those prayers,” Schuchts said. “If hHe’s really truly present, is there anything He can’t do now that he did back then?” Before a crowd of about 5,000, Mari Pablo of Evangelical Catholic reflected on the difficulties of living out the faith and helping others to do so in ministry at the Renewal impact session. “Being Catholic doesn’t mean that you don’t suffer or have struggles,” she said. “We’re the reli- gion that has crucifixes everywhere. But the story doesn’t end there. He conquered death and the grave. I know suffering, pain, death and healing are hard. But we’re created for so much more. We’re created for heaven.” At the Awake youth impact session, more than 1,000 teenagers raised their voices in song to God and heard a message of healing for their hearts. Catholic motivational speaker Jackie Francois Angel told the youth that God “loves us so deeply, but unfortunately so many of us don’t know how good we are. So many of us don’t think we’re good enough.” “God’s love is unconditional. He proved His love for us. And while we are all sinners, Christ died for us. He doesn’t stop loving us when we do bad things. He loves us in spite of that,” Angel said. “He loves all of us because He created us. We don’t earn God’s love, which also means we can’t lose God’s love. God’s love is unconditional.” The clergy Abide impact session continued with a focus on forming men and women as Eucharistic missionaries and laying the groundwork for them to bear fruit as evangelizers in an increasingly secularized culture. Pastors were encouraged to build a culture in their parishes and dioces- es in which the families in their flocks can be formed and equipped to live and share the Gospel in a new “apostolic age.” Nearly 2,000 Latino Catholics joined the morning Mass in Spanish attended by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez, and then heard the Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of SanAntonio preach on how the Eucharist, as Christ’s medicine, heals “our inability to love,” gives hope, and “through our full, conscious and active participa- tion in the Eucharistic celebration” transforms people in God’s love, empowering them to “practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy” by which the Lord will judge His followers. Thousands of Catholics gath- ered in Lucas Oil Stadium at the early morning Mass in English heard Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington reflect on St. John’s words: “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” He noted that it is often “the uncomplicated faith of ordinary people that serves as an assurance of the wonder of this gift” of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. He said this belief “must also prompt our equally important active response to that presence in charity, in each of our lives offered in service and with care for others.” Congress-goers that day had an opportunity to put this into practice by joining in packing several hundred thousand meals that afternoon for Indianapolis’ people suffering from hunger and homelessness, a number of whom could be seen in the area sleeping under highways or asking for help to get a meal. The day saw a powerful testimony to the power of belief in the Real Presence and radical commit- ment to the Gospel at the Empower session from Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Servant of God Dorothy Day. Hennessy, who remains active in the Catholic Worker movement at the Maryhouse Catholic Worker community in New York City, said that her grandmother was devoted to the Eucharist and she would remain silent for 20 minutes after holy Communion “to allow herself to absorb the presence of God within her before returning to her work.” SEE NEC24 DAY 3 DAYTIME, PAGE 18 Composer and musician Tony Meléndez is performs during a July 19 Encounter impact session at Lucas Oil Stadium during the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. OSV News photo/Bob Roller