By Richard Sasso
From July 17 to July 21, along with some 60,000 other Roman Catholics, I journeyed to Indianapolis to celebrate the 83rd National Eucharistic Congress. I arrived not knowing what to expect. What exactly is a National Eucharistic Congress? What would I do there? Who would I find there? I saw an all-star lineup of speakers from the Catholic world in the United States, from cardinals to prominent lay people. I knew I would be hearing a lot of wisdom from church leadership. Who would stand out? I wondered.
Ultimately, the most prominent figure present was Jesus Christ, there in his body, blood, soul and divinity. He was in every minute of the proceedings, every inch of the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. He appeared every night for Eucharistic Adoration in the most magnificent golden monstrance I had ever seen. If the bishops were motivated to launch the Eucharistic Revival because of a widespread lack of belief in the Real Presence among Catholics, I saw no such absence of belief at the National Eucharistic Convention. The image of 60,000-plus Catholics falling to their knees in adoration remains indelibly etched in my mind. The event was a spiritual marathon, from the first opening session on Wednesday night to the closing Sunday morning Mass.
Ignatian spirituality urges us to find God in all things, often a challenge in our broken and fallen world. This was no challenge, however, at the National Eucharistic Congress: Jesus was everywhere you looked, in everyone you looked at.
One powerful example was Monsignor John Shea’s wildly inspirational talk on spiritual hunger and satisfaction. Fr. Shea talked about how we hunger for material foods and are only ever temporarily satisfied. We have a spiritual hunger, too: a hunger that can only be met by God. The Eucharist, he proclaimed, is the only food with a satisfaction “score of infinity.”
He concluded his speech with a powerful admonition: “It is time for faithful Catholics to stop trying to live for God. Instead, we should start living from him. The body and blood of the Lord are the source of our life, our energy and our joy. So, let’s eat and drink here and every day to our heart’s content. And let’s rush out into a starving world and tell everybody we meet, starving people, listen: We found where the food is. We found where the food is.” Fr. Shea vanished as the crowd rose to its feet to thunderous applause, and I knew where I could find God — and what to do afterward.
We found Christ in the meal of the Eucharist, and we found Jesus as a healer after our own hearts. During one revival session titled “Into Gethsemane,” we were invited to find Jesus in our own brokenness. Sr. Miriam James Heidland broke my heart, saying, “The Lord is not asking you to figure out your life. He’s not asking you to get it together. He’s not asking you to fix yourself. He’s not asking you to make yourself lovable. He’s just inviting you to be loved.” How can I find Jesus? In his healing love.
I found Jesus again, someplace I did not expect: I saw two religious sisters ministering to a homeless man who lived under the train bridge between the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. They did not give him money but nourished him with food, spiritual and material. One sister held hands with him, and it was obvious he was a man whom few people had wanted to touch.
The care these women showed wasn’t the only instance of pilgrims serving others: “The Eucharistic Congress is partnering with Million Meal Movement to pack 360,000 meals, becoming the hands and feet of Christ for those in need. The packing event will be a fun and hands-on activity that will empower participants to make a tangible difference in the fight against hunger,” reads the Congress website.
You could find Christ in all the arts, too. Musicians performed on multiple stages in multiple styles, from contemporary Christian worship to Gregorian chant. Books and art of all types were for sale, and artists even created their work in the middle of the exposition hall in an improvised studio. Actor Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus on the television program “The Chosen,” spoke at the event.
Roumie, who has become the face of Jesus to many, shared how the experience had impacted him: “Playing Jesus Christ will transcend anything and everything that I do. It is the greatest honor not only of my career but definitively of my life, and I can only thank God for the opportunity to serve him using the gifts that he gave me to impact the rest of the world and the culture, so glory to God.” He may only be “TV Jesus,” but he is also bringing people to the real Jesus. Finding God in all things, including streaming services.
Attendees had an opportunity to see liturgies in different languages and different rites of the church. One was an Eastern Rite liturgy. In a dark room lit almost only by candles, the entire service was sung. Again, I found Jesus in the beautiful icons of him and his mother that framed the altar. The Eucharist was served under both species, as believers tipped their necks back to have a Eucharist of bread and wine fed to them with a spoon.
I also attended the Syro-Malabar Rite liturgy, known as a Qurbana, a beautiful and elaborate ritual from a church founded by the Apostle Thomas himself in India. The homily at this service, however, was given by a Ukrainian bishop who reminded us that hundreds die every day in the war in Ukraine and begged us to pray to the Prince of Peace to end that deadly war.
Finally, on the last full night of the event, Bishop Robert Barron delivered the keynote address. He urged the audience to forsake the false allure of power, pleasure, honor and wealth. Instead, he challenged the laity to become spiritual athletes. He shared with the audience the words of Dorothy Day, who argued that all baptized believers could and should live by the disciplines of poverty, charity and obedience and, in doing so, answer God’s call, Jesus’s call, to become the people we are meant to be.
And then, in words echoing those often attributed to Ignatius of Loyola, the bishop said: Do that, and we will set the world on fire.
