Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ plenary talk on the National Eucharistic Revival
Bob Roller/OSV NEWS
Letting the Word Become Flesh: Catholic Media and the Eucharistic Revival
Following are the prepared remarks given by the Most Rev. Andrew H. Cozzens. S.T.D., D.D., at the Catholic Media Conference on June 9, 2023, at the Catholic Media Conference in Baltimore.
I. Word of thanks to Janelle Gergen… who is the best communication director in the country and has been an incredible help and inspiration to me.
A. I also have to give a shout out to the team from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: Tom Halden, Maria Wiering, Joe Ruff, Nicole Mamura.
B. I was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for 8 years and some of those folks, especially Tom Halden walked through some very difficult things with me.
1. I’m sure neither of us will ever forget the press conference the day the two other bishops resigned because of the Archdiocese was under criminal charges.
2. Deep friendships are formed when you go through difficult things together.
C. I bring this up because it makes me think about how important the work that you all do.
1. Catholic communicators tell the Church’s story, but the Church’s story is not always easy to tell because it is not always good news.
2. Sometimes you have to tell the hard truth or try to help the hierarchy tell the truth.
3. Your fidelity to Christ and his Church in the midst of these difficulties and incredible suffering is a great inspiration to me.
4. Your living of your vocation, your way to love and serve the Church fills an incredible need.
5. And so many of you do it with real faith.
6. That is good news, because it is the news of redemption.
7. All of us who work for the Church have lived through some difficulties the past decade or so, thank you for your faithfilled perseverance in difficult times – which is redemptive.
II. This brings me to the title of my talk and what I wanted to speak with you about today:
A. I have entitled this talk: Letting the Word become Flesh: Catholic Media and the Eucharistic Revival.
1. Of course the Word became flesh two thousand years ago!
2. You all do a particular service to the word – you are bringing the word to the world.
3. But what is the purpose of that?
4. So that the word can take flesh in you and me.
5. So that Jesus Christ can continue to live his life again in the world.
6. He wants to continue his mission in the Church.
7. Your job is to magnify that word… so that he can continue enflame hearts who will live in his love.
B. As I have said many times and will continue to say. With the Eucharistic Revival we are trying to start a fire not a program.
1. We want to enkindle the fire of love with Jesus in the Eucharist in such a way that it will lead to mission.
2. Already we are seeing this in beautiful ways.
C. I’d like to speak with you today about the Revival and why I think it is important.
1. I am not going to talk about basics of the 3 year plan or what is going to happen at the National Eucharistic Congress, happy to do that in the Q and A if you want.
2. Rather, I hope to introduce you to the Heart of the Revival.
3. And in this way Invite you to be revived in your love for Christ in the Eucharist.
4. And talk about how you might fan the flame of this fire we are enkindling.
5. The revival is not the answer to all our problems, but it is something good, and the Holy Spirit is using and I believe wants to use it to strengthen our faith.
III. [Slide 2] What is the revival about? Two things. Two things which flow right from Pope Francis first and most important letter: Encounter and mission. (Pope Francis himself told me he thought this was his most important letter in my ad limina visit with him in 2020).
A. Why encounter and Mission.
1. [Slide 3] As Pope Francis has said: “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day” (E.G., #3).
2. Encounter is the heart of discipleship. Without this encounter with the living person of Jesus Christ, real discipleship is not possible.
B. And mission is our greatest need.
1. The church needs to make that missionary conversion from maintenance to mission.
2. Pope Francis speaks about this constantly, most recently in his letter last year on the liturgy… this paragraph explains the true heart of the Eucharistic Revival:
3. [Slide 4] “The world still does not know it, but everyone is invited to the supper of the wedding of the Lamb (Re 19:9)… We must not allow ourselves even a moment of rest, knowing that still not everyone has received an invitation to this Supper or knowing that others have forgotten it or have got lost along the way in the twists and turns of human living” (Desiderio desideravi, 5).
4. Then he quotes himself from Evangelii Gaudium: “This is what I spoke of when I said, “I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” (E.G., # 27). I want this so that all can be seated at the Supper of the sacrifice of the Lamb and live from Him” (DD, #5)
C. We must not allow ourselves even a moments rest! We must share with everyone the gift of the Eucharist.
D. Mission is the natural result of encounter – when we meet the Lord we desire to share Him with others.
E. So let’s start with defining the encounter.
IV. [Slide 6] Pope Francis speaks about the Encounter in the strongest terms: “Christian faith is either an encounter with Him alive, or it does not exist” (DD, 10). Why does he say this?
A. For people to experience true conversion. For you and I to experience true conversion.
1. We need to encounter Jesus Christ – the God Man who is alive.
2. Who knows me. Who calls me to follow him.
3. Think about the reality of the scriptures… thousands of people, tens of thousands heard Jesus preach, saw him perform a miracle, maybe even at some food he miraculously multiplied… and they went home and said… “That was interesting.”
4. They were not changed.
B. But then there are these encounters in the scripture..
1. Encounters like Jesus has with Peter or Matthew when he calls them.
2. Encounters like he has with the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery or Mary Magdalene.
3. Encounters like Zaccheus or Bartimaeus
4. These people are changed by the encounter.
C. Let’s look at Andrew and John in the 1st chapter of St. John’s Gospel.
1. Andrew and John already had a religious instinct.
a. They were disciples of John the Baptist and had been taken by his message of repentance.
b. And it was one day when they were with him that everything began to change.
2. John the Baptist saw Jesus walking by and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
a. John and Andrew were intrigued and they begin to follow Jesus.
b. [SLIDE 7] This following lead to an encounter. He turned and looked at them and said, “What are you looking for” (Jn 1:38). They responded, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So, they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.
c. Why does St. John when recounting this story say, “It was about four in the afternoon.”
d. Pope Francis says, This was such a life-changing moment for St. John that he remembered and recounted the exact moment it happened. (General Audience, August 30, 2017)
3. What was so life changing about that encounter?
a. In this encounter, as they spend the day with Jesus, we don’t know what happened…but we do know it.
b. They began to realize that he was different than anyone they had ever met.
c. Then they began to see that he could speak to the deepest needs and desires of their hearts.
d. Eventually they realized that he was someone they could live without and soon they are willing to stake their whole life on this Jesus.
e. So much so that Andrew runs to get his brother Peter and says, “We have found the messiah”
4. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the founder of the Communion and Liberation movement Fr. Luigi Guisanni.
a. Many argue that he was one of the great spiritual influences on Pope Francis.
b. Guisanni, calls this experience of Andrew and John the exceptionality of Jesus which corresponds the deepest needs of the human heart.
c. [SLIDE 8] He says, “There are deep needs that give a goal to living, to reasoning and to moving. When something corresponds to the criteria by which everything is judged and lived, when it corresponds to the criteria by which life is lived, should be lived… when it corresponds to the deepest needs of the heart… when it brings to fruition what life has been awaiting then its exceptional.”
d. He then argues that this exceptionality of Jesus, what made him so different from everyone else and at the same time so attractive, was a sign of his divinity.
D. They discovered, in some way that they had met someone Divine. That in Jesus they were encountering God in some way.
1. They were changed by him and realized they had to orient their whole life to him.
2. This is the heart of Christianity.
E. [Slide 9] Pope Francis quotes Pope Benedict when he speaks of this encounter as the foundation of the Christian life in Evangelii Gaudium: “I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (EG, 7).
F. These encounters take on different forms –
1. Some are people who are healed like Bartimaeus or those who are forgiven like Mary Magdalene –
2. but the result is the same, through this encounter they realize who Jesus is and that they cannot live without him and the seek to become his disciple.
G. One paradigm for this is St. Paul.
1. St. Paul meets the living Lord – and he is struck blind.
2. We could say certainly this blindness is a symbol of his life before his conversion.
3. He did not know who he was persecuting.
4. But through the surrender of his life to Jesus Christ, he is cured of his blindness and begins to see the whole world differently.
V. [SLIDE 10] There are essential elements to this encounter.
A. First the realization that Jesus is God.
1. Look at Luke 5:1-11.
2. St. Peter is just meeting Jesus. At his house, healed his mother in law.
3. He fishes all night and catches nothing.
4. The next morning teaching…. Put out into the deep, resistance.
5. Miracle of the great catch.
6. He realizes he is before God.
B. Second essential element… I realize I am a sinner.
1. I am before God, and I am not worthy to be here.
2. Very important to understand the first light of Christianity makes me feel my need, my sinfulness.
3. This is why when the Gospels summarize Jesus message they summarize simply: Repent and believe in the Gospel.
4. These are the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark? “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
5. When you encounter the kingdom of God in Jesus, it requires you to re-order your life.
6. This requires repentance, metanoia, literally turning from my sinful way of life towards God.
7. We see this always…
a. Mary Magdalene, Woman at the well, Zaccheus.
C. Third, essential element – which happens at the very same moment… despite being a sinner, I am infinitely loved!
1. Jesus does not leave. He draws close to the sinner.
2. He offers redemption. Forgiveness and new life.
D. Fourth, I am invited to follow him in a new life.
1. I want to be his disciple.
2. I want to live as he lives and follow his teaching.
3. This is learning to place God first in my life and follow him in every area of my life.
VI. It all begins with encounter. This is the first and most essential step.
A. Without this encounter the truth of the Gospel will never make sense.
1. In order to desire to grow in knowledge and understanding I have to first encounter him as the living God and come to know his truth and love.
2. I have to encounter that He is God and that he knows me and loves me.
3. That he calls me to something greater.
B. Here I hope you realize why the struggles with living faith in our Church is not just a matter of intellectual material, or good catechesis (as essential as those are)
1. This will not make Christians.
2. The encounter we seek is not just a matter of the intellect but of the heart.
3. [SLIDE 11] As Pope Benedict said, “The organ for seeing God is the heart. The intellect alone is not enough. In order for man to become capable of perceiving God, the energies of his existence have to work in harmony. His will must be pure and so too must the underlying affective dimension of his soul, which gives intelligence and will its direction” (Pope Benedict XVI “Jesus of Nazareth,” pp. 92‐93).
C. An encounter of the heart is what is required to change someone.
1. That is someone must fall and love.
2. Then this love must be allowed to order all the other loves in the heart.
D. What this means is that people must come to meet Jesus Christ as a real and living person.
1. Jesus is not a personality, someone you can know about, but a person, someone you can know.
2. I always love to the famous quotation about this which St. Teresa of Calcutta spoke to her sisters.
3. As her life was coming to an end her sisters asked her to write to them about the founding grace of the Missionaries of Charity. The religious community she founded with the goal of satiating the infinite thirst of Jesus on the Cross.
4. When she wrote to them she said this:
a. [SLIDE 12] “Jesus wants me to tell you again, especially in this Holy Week, how much is the love He has for each one of you – beyond all you can imagine. I worry some of you still have not really met Jesus – one to one – you and Jesus alone. We may spend time in chapel – but have you seen with eyes of your soul how He looks at you with love?
b. [SLIDE 13] Do you really know the living Jesus – not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you? Ask for the grace, He is longing simply to give it. Until you can hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will not be able to hear Him saying ‘I Thirst’ in the hearts of the poor.
c. [SLIDE 14] Never give up this intimate contact with Jesus as a real living person – not just an idea. How can we last even one day living our life without hearing Jesus say ‘I love you’ – impossible. Our soul needs that as much as the body needs to breathe the air. If not, prayer is dead – meditation only thinking” (Mother Teresa, Varanasi Letter, March 1993).
5. I always find this quote so striking because she is writing to her sisters. These are women who have given up family and homeland and live lives of poverty, chastity and obedience and she says to them: “I’m worried that some of you still have not really met Jesus –one to one—you and Jesus alone.”
6. I suppose if she can say that to her sisters, we could ask ourselves the same question?
a. Have I really met Jesus – one to one- me and Jesus alone?
b. Have I heard the loving words he speaks to me?
c. Have I heard Jesus speak to me in the silence of my own heart?
d. Have I seen with the eyes of my heart how he looks at me with love?
7. She is speaking about an encounter with a person.
a. Knowing Jesus as a living person – a living personal experience of Jesus in prayer.
b. Discovering this one who knows me.
c. Discovering my own inadequacy that I am a loved sinner.
E. Key question: Have you had this encounter? Do you seek this encounter in prayer? When was the last time you had such an encounter in prayer? Pope Francis says we should seek it every day.
VII. I hope you can see that our teaching on the Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the presence of his sacrifice is one of the keyways to facilitate this encounter.
A. I think it is one of the reasons that Jesus remains with us in the sacrament.
1. Remember Emmaus… Remain with us!
2. He does and then. He sits with them at table: They knew him, they encountered him in the breaking of the bread – the Eucharist.
3. The real presence of Jesus allows us today the possibility to truly encounter him.
B. At the heart of our teaching on the real presence is the simple truth: the same Jesus who was born in Bethelehem, who walked on the earth, who suffered and died on the Cross, who rose from the dead and is seated at the Right hand of the Father – this same person of Jesus Christ, is really, truly and substantiall present here and now in the Eucharist.
1. He is here so you can receive him in Holy Communion.
2. So you can adore him in adoration.
3. So you can encounter him and he can speak to you and lead you to union with him.
C. One of the keys to Catholic belief in the Eucharist has to do with adoration.
1. The Church has always argued that there is a personal presence in the Eucharist.
2. Jesus Christ is personally present here.
3. So much so that when we come before the Eucharist, we give the Eucharist the reverence due to God.
4. This is the hallmark of Catholic belief in the Eucharist.
5. Luther and many other reformers wanted to hold the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but when they did not believe in the actual change in the substance of the bread.
6. When asked if the bread was worthy of the same adoration due to God, every reformer said no, every Catholic said yes!
D. This is why adoration is so powerful for the encounter with Jesus!
1. My experience with young people – when I find a young person who is alive in their faith I ask them how they came to be, most of them say adoration had something to do with it.
2. One example…
a. When I was a parish priest many years ago I took a group of young people from my parish to the Steubenville Youth Conference in St. Paul.
b. I saw one young man before the evening adoration session and he was not into this conference… long hair, forced to be here, but from a good family.
c. When I saw him right before the evening session, I felt inspired to challenge him. So I got close to him and put my finger in his chest and said, “Look out. God wants to do something powerful in your life tonight.”
d. At the end of the night he came up to me and said… with tears in his eyes and said, how did you know? He encountered Jesus and it changed everything.
e. He hardly ever missed youth group after that.
3. As a young priest… I saw this on retreats… bring them to Jesus and let him do the work.
E. Of course the most profound encounter we can have with the Lord is in the Mass.
1. [SLIDE 15] Pope Francis speaks about the power of this encounter in his new Apostolic Letter on the Eucharist:
2. “The Liturgy guarantees for us the possibility of such an encounter. For us a vague memory of the Last Supper would do no good. We need to be present at that Supper, to be able to hear his voice, to eat his Body and to drink his Blood. We need Him.
3. [SLIDE 16] In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us. The salvific power of the sacrifice of Jesus, his every word, his every gesture, glance, and feeling reaches us through the celebration of the sacraments” (DD, 11).
4. He is really here and when we come to him in Communion he really comes to us.
5. It is hard to imagine a more profound union with us than him coming to us as our food.
VIII. This is one of the reasons why I think a Eucharistic Revival is so important right now in the Church.
A. I want to speak about why this is important, especially right now in today’s world.
B. The world we live in is in crisis! This is clear to anyone who is watching with Christian eyes.
1. From the wars on the international scene to the struggles for the soul of the family in our country.
2. There is a struggle happening in our country for the hearts and souls of our young people and on our families.
3. There are strong cultural forces that are pulling people away from God.
4. We see it everywhere.
C. The struggle is affecting dramatically our Church, which is also hurting.
D. How should we respond to this crisis?
1. The problems of our time demand a spiritual response.
2. What the world needs now is the healing power of Christ’s love.
E. [SLIDE 17] About a year ago, someone sent me a quote from the encyclical letter on the Eucharist which Pope Leo XIII wrote at the beginning of the 20th century.
1. It was entitled Mirae Caritatis – “Of Wondrous Love”
2. Pope Leo XIII you may remember was the famous Pope who had the vision that the 20th century was going to be one of great spiritual struggle and wrote the Leonine Prayers, including the prayer of St. Michael and declared they should be said at the end of every low mass.
3. As the 20th century began, he turned his attention to the Eucharist.
4. He believed that the many struggles ahead for the Church demanded a spiritual response and he asked the whole Church to renew and strengthen their love for the Eucharist as a way through these struggles.
F. When I read that I believed the same thing is true today.
1. We have many struggles in the Church and we could focus on many things –
2. So many things to face, what should we focus on?
3. The Eucharist which is the source and the summit of our lives.
G. Why?
1. Because Christ in the Eucharist is the true source of our life, the true source of healing for the world.
2. Because the Eucharist, as Vatican II says, contains the entire spiritual wealth of the Church.
3. In the midst of the Crisis, we need to focus on what is most important.
4. The church needs to be strengthened in her identity.
5. The members of the Church need to know who they are and why they live?
6. If we are strengthened in our identity we will be ready for mission.
IX. To understand this, I want to briefly explain a paradigm I got from St. John Paul II.
A. [SLIDE 18] The paradigm is Relationship, Identity, Mission.
1. Three words: Relationship => Identity => Mission.
2. Order is essential.
3. This is a very important understanding of the human person in Christ that flows from St. John Paul II’s theology of the body and personalistic philosophy.
4. Here is the basic point.
a. First, we were made for relationship.
b. From our relationships we know who we are – our identity.
c. From our identity, we know what we should do – our mission.
5. If we get this order wrong, then we end up being pulled away from our true identity into false identity.
a. We begin to take our identity from what we do, not from who we are in relationship.
b. This can happen to the Church.
c. The Church can forget that the source of her life, the source of who she is comes from her relationship with the Trinity.
6. She can begin to live for her mission not for her relationship.
a. This leads us to water down the Gospel to become a self-help program.
b. Or it leads the Church to become mainly a group of professionals measuring statistics.
c. Pope Francis has spoken strongly against this in his Apostolic letter on Evangelization – where he talked about the danger of the Church being thought of only as an business or an institution, not an place of relationship (See EG, 95)
B. [SLIDE 19] Remember what Vatican II actually says, “The other sacraments, as well as with every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are tied together with the Eucharist and are directed toward it” (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 5).
1. Every ministry! Every work of the Church! Every apostolate – is meant to lead people to the Eucharist = Relationship!…
a. This is why we teach, this is why we feed the poor, it is why we publish! to bring them to the Eucharist.
b. To invite them to know their place at the table, the one table.
c. This altar where heaven and earth come together and where we eat and drink of eternal life.
C. Here you see the key point: For the Church the place she experiences her identity is in the Eucharist.
1. This is where we know who we are before God, as individuals and as the Church.
2. This is where we discover our worth.
3. This is where we discover our mission.
X. [SLIDE 20] What does the Eucharist reveal to us about our Identity?
A. First: I am God’s beloved – I am the bride for which he laid down his life.
1. The Eucharist reveals to me how much I am loved.
a. What is my dignity – my worth.
b. “This is my body given up for you.” “This is my blood poured out for you.”
c. I am worth dying for.
d. Jesus gives his body for me, he pours out his blood for me.
B. Second: I am the Body of Christ.
1. This is an ancient teaching of the Church on the Eucharist going back all the way to St. Paul.
2. [SLIDE 21] St. Paul himself makes this clear, in his own sacramental understanding of the Eucharist: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:16).
3. We become the Body of Christ through our reception of the Eucharist.
4. Again this is not only a corporate reality but an individual reality.
5. “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it” (1 Cor. 12:27).
a. This is where St. Paul’s whole theology of living in Christ comes from.
b. For St. Paul this truth means that I become one with Jesus through baptism and the Eucharist, to the point that Christ lives his incarnation in me again.
c. As he expresses in Galations 2:20 – “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”
C. Here we see how our identity leads to mission.
1. We are the body of Christ, which means we make Christ present in the world today.
2. [SLIDE 22] St. Teresa of Avila made this clear when she said, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”
3. We have become one with Jesus through the Eucharist and he wants to continue his presence in the world through you.
4. Do you believe you are called to be Jesus?
5. In your family, in your work place, you are Jesus.
6. Do you know how to be Jesus? Do you seek to live in union with him?
D. This is the purpose of my adoration and communion so I can become more like him.
E. And then I can make him present in the world.
XI. The Eucharistic Revival is about providing opportunities for encounter with the living God in the Eucharist.
A. So that we can enkindle a fire in people’s hearts
B. so that they can know who they are,
C. so they can be healed, converted, formed and sent on mission – this is our audacious goal.
D. We are trying to help the Church make the missionary conversion she needs to make.
XII. So how can you as Catholic Communicators help?
A. We need you to help facilitate these encounters and help enkindle the fire for mission.
B. There are many elements which facilitate an encounter with Christ, but perhaps the most important one is witness.
C. I love the line from St. Paul VI’s encyclical on Evangelization in the modern world:
1. [SLIDE 23] “In the long run, is there any way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting to another person one’s personal experience of faith?” Evangelii Nuntiandi, 46
D. It is the personal story of someone who has experienced that Jesus is alive and real.
1. Someone who experienced a profound conversion.
2. Someone who experienced a profound healing.
3. It’s the stories of the encounter that are so important.
4. Because they open up the imagination for others to have the encounter.
5. They move the heart.
6. This is how the word becomes flesh today and leads people to an encounter with the true Word made flesh.
E. I hope you can see why we need you Catholic communicators to share the witness of those who have had these encounters.
1. The crisis in Eucharistic belief in which we find ourselves is not just an intellectual problem. It is that, we need to educate and form people in the truth.
2. But the heart is opened to the encounter by the witness.
3. It is Andrew going to Peter to tell him… we have found the messiah come and see.
F. We need YOU to tell the story.
1. I’d encourage you to think about the different aspects of this encounter as you tell the story. 1. Experience that Jesus is God. 2. Experience of our need for repentance and conversion. 3. The truth that I am infinitely loved, even in my sinfulness. 4. Desire to follow him. How can you help lead people into the fullness of this encounter.
2. I want to highlight a couple of tools we are providing for the parish year that will serve this.
a. First the parish play book – already available on the Revival website.
b. Second, a small group resource… why small groups?
i. Essential to this encounter is the experience of trust and belonging.
ii. Alpha has perfected this: people need to belong before the believe.
iii. When I experience that I am loved and cared for. When I experience friendship. I am open to trusting your story.
iv. Small groups are a powerful place to share the witness.
G. Most especially, we need you to live the story.
1. Pope Francis, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day” (E.G., #3).
XIII. This is the reason that I want all of you to come to Indianapolis next year.
A. What will this 10th National Eucharistic Congress be about?
1. This is not just another national Catholic Conference with the best Catholic Speakers, even though all the best Catholic Speakers will be there.
2. This is the Bishops calling for a revival.
3. The Bishops of the United States voted in favor of this National Eucharistic Congress by over 90%.
4. They are calling us together to encounter the power of our Eucharistic Lord, and to be set on fire for mission.
5. This congress will be a missionary moment for the US Church when we will ask the Holy Spirit to come and revive us.
XIV. In fact I’d like just to close by commenting on this word Revival.
A. A lot of people have asked why we chose the word Revival.
B. There are many reasons:
1. We did want to bring to mind that deeply American image of the old Pentecostal Revival where we ask the Lord to send us his Holy Spirit.
2. It also helps to capture the key goal: we are trying to start a fire not a program.
a. I say that all the time because I mean it.
b. We have some programmatic aspects but this revival is about inviting everyone to increase their love for the Eucharist and share it.
3. The third reason is the word revival literally means bringing back to life. And this is what we need in the Church right now.
a. One of the images I have been reflecting on in prayer is the image of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.
b. Sometimes the Church currently can feel like that field of dry bones that we are asking God to bring back to life.
C. What is a Revival?
D. Revival is a divine visitation.
1. Something God Does.
2. Like when the Prophets invited revival in the Old Testament.
3. Pentecost was a revival – a setting on fire.
E. [SLIDE 24] Theologians say that During a revival God will:
1. Grip His people with deep conviction, repentance, forgiveness, and deliverance from personal sins.
2. Fill His people with the Holy Spirit and manifest through them the fruit and graces of the Holy Spirit.
3. Fill the church and community with His presence and power.
4. Cause non-Christians to earnestly seek Him.
5. Ignite in His people, young and old, a passion to bring the lost to Christ at home and around the world.
F. This makes the point that someone made in an article this year – they said: Who are the bishops to call what they are doing a revival – isn’t a revival something only God can do?
1. When I read that, I thought – he is right… but we can pray for a revival, we can ask for one, we can dispose ourselves to receive the grace.
2. This is what our bishops are doing.
3. Asking God to bring about a revival.
4. This is what we will do in Indianapolis, ask God to send his Holy Spirit and revive his Church.
XV. I would like to close with a story of an encounter with the Lord that changed me, it helped me understand a revival.
A. It is important because it can show that this revival is for everyone.
B. When I was a student priest I had the privilege to get to know the Missionaries of charity.
1. A few occasions went to Gent Belgium for a retreat.
2. Fernand… paraplegic.
3. He was the reason the Missionaries of charity in Gent.
4. He loved the Eucharist.
C. [SLIDE 25] “I’m just a man with all my weakness but I am burning with love.”
D. This is the revival we want, to be set on fire with Christ’s love so we can be given for the world.
