Day 4 of the National Congress begins with historic liturgy and outlines vision for the future of the Church

INDIANAPOLIS (OSV News) — The fourth day of the National Eucharistic Congress began at Lucas Oil Stadium with a liturgy — and a story — from the church the apostle Thomas founded in India.

Tens of thousands of Catholics filled the stadium on July 20 to join together in celebrating a Holy Qurbana, the Eucharistic liturgy of the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the 23 Eastern Rite churches of the Catholic Church, celebrated by Bishop Joy Alappatt of the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Chicago. The bishop explained that the Qurbana, which he celebrated in English with some hymns in the original Syriac language, “originally dates back to the time of St. Thomas the Apostle … who came to India in 52 AD, and because of his missionary work we got a Catholic community in India.”

Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of Philadelphia, who concelebrated the Holy Qurbana, told the thousands in attendance that just as St. Thomas went out to take the Gospel to India, they too are called to share the Good News far and wide. He said: “Just imagine — 20,000 years from now, someone might say … when we receive the (Holy Spirit), ‘Around the year 2000, things really started to move (for the church). People empowered by the body and blood of the Lord, receiving the Holy Spirit, went out with the Good News.'”

Congress attendees took part in what organizers say could be the largest Eastern liturgical celebration in North American history, on a day dedicated to the theme “This Is My Body.”

Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, told reporters later that morning that they wanted attendees to experience the convention’s theme of unity amid the “beautiful diversity” of the church.

“The Catholic Church is a universal Church. It speaks every language on earth. We are the most diverse organization in the world, because every culture and every language celebrates the Eucharist differently,” he said.

For most of those present, who were familiar with the Mass—the form of Eucharistic liturgy in the Latin Church—this was their first experience with the Holy Qurbana. It gave them a deeper appreciation for Jesus’ gift of himself in the Eucharist.

“I felt like it just had everything we believe in, the Bible and the Scripture, from beginning to end,” said Theodore Kuczek, an attorney from a northern Chicago suburb who said praying the various forms of the Eucharistic liturgy felt both familiar and emotionally stirring. “It was just very, very moving. The closing prayer … made us meditate on how joyful this was and to savor it now, because who knows if we’ll ever have it again.”

During the morning Mass for youth, Archbishop Charles C. Thompson of Indianapolis spoke candidly to the young people about the impact each of them can have, even on those who are suffering.

“We don’t know the wounds that people carry. We see some on the outside. The deepest wounds are often on the inside. We don’t know the lives that we touch,” he said.

“But every time you … offer a smile, open a door, sit with a sick friend, say hello to a stranger — we never know what a difference we are making,” he said. “You never know how God is using us.”

He told the youth that the church needed them as committed disciples of Jesus and that their testimonies were a source of inspiration.

“It’s so important for us to remember that the youth in our church are not the future of the church. You are the young church now and we need your energy,” he said. “We need your gifts now.”

In the Encounter impact session, theologian Edward Sri explained the scriptural context of some of the Mass. He acknowledged that many Catholics may feel like “robots,” performing Mass without understanding what they are saying or why. Drawing on the Wedding at Cana and scenes from Revelation, he explained that Mass is a wedding celebration, and “every time you go to Mass, you get a wedding invitation.”

Sri encouraged participants to keep the “fire” they experienced at the conference alive by living together with other committed Catholics and paying attention to their relationships with people in their lives, especially their families.

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, an international speaker and author who spoke immediately after Sri, urged those in attendance not to shy away from their calling to evangelize those around them by focusing on the love of Jesus.

“We have to remember that people can meet Jesus for the first time when they meet you,” he said. “Filled with word and sacrament, you become his witness in the world, and that is their first encounter with Jesus.”

After Mass in Spanish with Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, nearly 2,000 Latin American Catholics participated in the final Encuentro session of the congress.

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph A. Espaillat of New York discussed how to become missionary disciples by accompanying, listening, teaching and sending. He urged the audience to cheer for the risen Christ and not let this moment pass. “We are here to light a fire, Amen?” he said. “So we don’t go back home if we are the same.”

Theologian Dora Tobar Mensbrugghe gave a presentation about the life of a disciple of Jesus and how a Eucharistic disciple is also a missionary.

“Being a disciple does not mean that you ‘know’ or ‘repeat’ his teachings, no matter how beautiful they are,” she said. “It is not about simply being admirers of the person of Christ.”

Instead, she said, Jesus wants his disciples to be transformed and “to be beings of love and for love. To be in his image.”

During the Cultivate impact session for families, Damon and Melanie Owens spoke about the importance of developing communal relationships between families. The 31-year-old couple and parents of eight are the co-founders of Joy Ever After marriage and family ministry.

“It’s essential to build a tribe, those families that you can trust to share in the formation of your children, your family,” Damon said. “Children provide opportunities to meet families with other children. But it’s about finding the ones who truly share your faith, your values ​​and your mission, and making the decision to share with them.”

Melanie Owens encouraged mothers to find “a collective of women that you can open your hearts to, where you can trust and support each other.”

She said: “I wanted Damon to fulfill me and make me happy, especially after being with the kids all day. But I had to form a collective of women to do that. That helps create better families.”

Lisa Brenninkmeyer, founder and CEO of Walking with Purpose, a Catholic ministry that provides Bible studies and fellowship for women, said during the Empower session that Catholics must respond to the hidden epidemic plaguing the faithful and society at large: loneliness and isolation. She called attention to recent findings by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy that “even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.”

Drawing on the example of the early church in Acts, Brenninkmeyer said that “when the church comes together and offers an experience of true community, transformation takes place.”

She acknowledged that St. Paul’s exhortation to Christians to “bear one another’s burdens” is not easy. “Isolation is often easier, frankly,” she said.

“We face the pain of being in relationships with broken people and we get hurt,” she said, “so we withdraw and isolate ourselves,” but “the circumstances that so often indicate that we need to withdraw from this community are the very things that God brings into our lives through community so that we can be transformed into the image of Christ.”

She encouraged those in attendance to “keep showing up,” building relationships within their communities and growing them in their families to “build a church where no one stands alone.”

In the Renewal impact session for ministry leaders, Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS, the missional outreach to college students, told them that they can only be effective evangelists if they trust in the transformative power of the gospel that really works. He urged them to have a sense of urgency and not become complacent. Martin said that while God will take care of things, “he really wants you to pray and weep and fast and love the poor, because he has done those things for us.”

“The crisis in our culture today is not because Jesus is less relevant. He has never been more relevant,” Martin said. “We have the best story in the world. It’s not just fascinating and compelling — it’s true.”

During an emotional final Abide impact session for clergy, Dan Cellucci, CEO of the Catholic Leadership Institute, shared the story of his son Peter’s diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor at age 7 and how the disease was not “what he signed up for” as a husband and father. He compared the struggles of his fatherhood to the struggles so many priests face in their own priestly ministries, where it’s all too easy to become disillusioned and think that this is not “the cruise ship I signed up for.”

“So many of you have been broken by trauma, by feeling betrayed… or just plain defeated,” he said.

He said to those who are “hanging by a thread, ready to explode or implode because the life they said yes to is now more than the life they imagined and wanted… you made the right choice to be here, to be part of this experience with your brothers, and I pray that you will persevere. Jesus wants to heal you.”

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, followed Cellucci’s witness by reflecting with his brother priests on the “poverty of Christ” and challenging them to become ever more attuned to Christ and to commit themselves to the good of their people.

“This is the point,” he said. “That the Christ makes himself fully present and fully known in his true sense of who God is—as the God who gives himself out.”

As the morning sessions drew to a close, the Indiana Convention was abuzz with joy and anticipation for the upcoming Eucharistic Procession through downtown Indianapolis that afternoon. A huge line snaked through the convention center to see exhibits on Eucharistic miracles and the Shroud of Turin, as young people marched through, joyfully singing of their love for Jesus.

In another spontaneous and exuberant moment, a group of women from across the US from the Catholic Women’s Association – Cameroon sang and danced to songs expressing their love for Jesus and Mary, expressed through their Cameroonian heritage.

“We thirst for You Jesus, we thirst for You Jesus, we thirst for You — and that’s why we’re here.”

This story was written by Julie Asher, Lauretta Brown, Gretchen R. Crowe, Maria-Pia Negro Chin, Gina Christian, Natalie Hoefer, John Shaughnessy, Peter Jesserer Smith, and Maria Wiering.