Ministry leaders reminded of the power of the Eucharist at Bloomington gathering

Timothy O’Malley, director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, gives a presentation on the Eucharist to archdiocesan leaders in catechesis, youth ministry and college campus ministry on March 1 at St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

BLOOMINGTON—In the midst of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival, parish catechetical leaders and leaders in youth and college campus ministry across central and southern Indiana face challenges in planting and nurturing seeds of faith in the hearts of young people immersed in an increasingly secular culture.

Despite these daily obstacles, they continue on, convinced in their hearts of the truth, beauty and goodness of Christ, his Gospel and the Church.

Many of them gathered on March 1 at St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington to be encouraged in their ministry and to help each other be more effective in sharing the Gospel.

The annual Winter Day of Formation for Lay Ecclesial Ministers was co-sponsored by the archdiocesan offices of catechesis, youth ministry and young adult and college campus ministry.

Timothy O’Malley, director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana, gave two presentations on the Eucharist at the meeting that drew more than 80 ministry leaders from across the archdiocese.

A popular Catholic author of Becoming Eucharistic People: The Hope and Promise of Parish Life and Real Presence: What Does It Mean and Why Does It Matter?, O’Malley has been involved in the planning of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival in the U.S.

“The Church is where the great divine mystery of love unfolds,” he said. “That’s why we need a eucharistic revival.”

O’Malley noted that people involved in ministry in the Church can sometimes focus a lot of attention on programs they help lead and parish and diocesan ministry offices that assist them.

“We rely on bureaucracy,” he said. “We forget that it is Christ who is guiding the Church.”

O’Malley later reflected on how the value placed on speed and technology in contemporary culture can make sharing the Gospel challenging for the Church.

“We’re slow,” he said. “We don’t make decisions with speed. We don’t think speed wins. We think stability has value to it.”

The speed at which culture runs, O’Malley said, can lead people to ignore the deeper meaning of life.

“Evangelization starts with asking the big questions,” he said. “But if you move too fast, you don’t have time for the big questions—or any questions. Many young people find ways to avoid the big questions—alcohol, drugs, mind-numbing engagement in an Internet world.”

Secularization in culture also leads to people forgetting stories that link them and society to the past and give meaning to their lives, O’Malley noted. In contrast, the Church, he said, lives to share Christ’s story and make it—and him—alive here and now.

“In telling his story, we actually encounter him,” O’Malley said. “The Church isn’t remembering a once upon a time story. … Christ is active today.”

And this happens most intensely, he proposed, in the Eucharist.

“You are not just experiencing a little bit of spiritual delight or devotional life [at Mass],” O’Malley said. “The God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob—the God who sent his Son into the world—that God gives himself to us. He acts here and now.

“The revival starts with us actually remembering what we’re doing. At stake is a love that was given. Divine salvation unfolds at Mass.”

In order to appreciate more fully what really happens at Mass, O’Malley suggested, Catholics need to slow down.

“You know what is actually needed for the eucharistic revival?” he asked his listeners. “Leisure. Stopping. Slowing down. It’s not complicated. Ask people to be together. Go to Mass.”

Throughout his presentations, O’Malley reflected on the Eucharist in light of liturgical texts written some 800 years ago by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, traditionally known as Corpus Christi.

In one of those texts, St. Thomas described the Eucharist as a “pledge of future glory.”

While the Eucharist, O’Malley noted, is a “foretaste of heaven,” Catholics still live in a world that is very much not heaven. This reality can make it hard at times to fully appreciate the gift and transformative power of the Mass.

The more Catholics can become consciously aware of what Christ offers them in the Eucharist, O’Malley said, the more they can then offer to the world a different and compelling understanding of reality than what dominates contemporary culture.

“In the Eucharist, we have a proposal that our fulfillment is this: love and love unto the end,” O’Malley said. “The world can be a space of love, a communion of friendship. It need not be governed by power, prestige, fame and fortune. It can be governed instead by love. We can do something about that. In fact, we have to.”

Lay Catholics, he said, can enter more fully into this eucharistic reality by offering to God all that they do in their everyday lives in their participation in the Mass. This would link their life outside of Mass with the liturgy, transforming their experience of both of them.

“It is all of us offering our lives as a sacrifice of love,” O’Malley said. “ … That’s what the eucharistic revival is actually about.”

Melissa Fronckowiak attended the meeting in Bloomington from St. Gabriel Parish in Connersville, where she leads faith formation and youth ministry efforts.

She appreciated O’Malley’s love for the Eucharist, something that has been deeply planted in her own heart.

“We have so greatly increased our times for eucharistic adoration,” said Fronckowiak. “I’m kind of a stickler about it. If we have Christ present on the altar, let’s not promote anything else [in the parish] at that time.”

Coming together with other ministry leaders from across central and southern Indiana was encouraging for her.

“It truly makes the idea of us as the body of Christ more visible,” said Fronckowiak. “That love of each other and for Christ himself is more tangible and visible. It fills me with a hope that we can go back to our parishes and bring what we’ve learned to the people we serve.”

Archbishop Charles C. Thompson celebrated Mass at St. Paul with those taking part in the meeting.

During his homily, the archbishop prayed that the ministry leaders gathered would “never tire of being witnesses as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ by means of evangelizing and catechesis, through your commitment to word, sacrament and service.

“May we draw strength and inspiration from the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in this Eucharist, that which sustains us, the source and summit of our identity, witness and mission, as we strive to proclaim the good news of salvation.” †