The Real Presence Changes Lives

The National Eucharistic Congress held in Indianapolis this past month might be considered the high point of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival that began in 2022 on the Feast of Corpus Christi and will continue throughout the Church's 2025 Jubilee Year. So, while we take joy in all that has happened up to this point, it's important to remember our work is not yet done.

An apt analogy for the work before us might be drawn with the work of the first Christians in the aftermath of Christ's passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven, the culminating events in salvation history. It is within the mystery of those events that we find the enduring gift Christ left in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the ritual at the heart of the first wave of evangelization when the disciples ventured forth to share the Good News.

The mission taken up by those first followers of Christ has been passed down for centuries among the faithful and it passes now to us. The Eucharistic Revival is nothing less than a call to renew our commitment to share the Good News of Jesus Christ by grounding ourselves in the ritual that has animated our faith from the very beginning. The questions we are left with are: first, how does our faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist change the way we live our lives? And second, how do we share this faith with others? The answers are intertwined because sometimes the best way to evangelize is simply to allow our faith to animate our lives and then to share that way of life with others.

For practicing Catholics, it can be easy to take certain aspects of the faith for granted. We go to Mass regularly and receive the Eucharist, and it fortifies us in quiet ways that we keep close to our hearts, but do we share this reality with those who have drifted from their practice of the faith so they might understand how transformative it might be to return to Mass on a regular basis?

We've experienced the healing effect of more frequent Mass attendance and Eucharistic Adoration in times of trial in our lives, but do we draw others into these experiences when we know they are enduring trials?

To do these things requires confidence in the transformative power of our faith, and if there is one thing we take away from this entire three-year Eucharistic Revival, it should be just that - confidence in the faith, and confidence to encourage others to turn to Christ in the great gift he left us in the Eucharist.

It can be easy to envy those first followers of Christ, whose experiences with our Lord left no doubt in their minds and filled their hearts with love and appreciation for Him. But let's also remember Christ's words to doubting Thomas after allowing him to touch the wounds of crucifixion on His resurrected body. He said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

As we steel ourselves to take up the mantle passed down by those first followers of Jesus, let's remember we are not lesser in this line of succession that has followed them down through the centuries simply because we weren't there when Christ walked the earth. If we are to believe the words of our Lord, we must know that in a very real way, we are truly blessed.

This essay is a recent "Light One Candle" column by Father Ed Dougherty, M.M., The Christophers' Board of Directors ; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.

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