19th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 - Eucharistic Missionaries

 Back in 2022, the Church in the United States began a multi-year initiative of Eucharistic Revival. In the first phase of the Revival, each diocese had gatherings of the faithful. So back in June of 2022, members of the faithful, clergy and religious from the various parishes and institutions gathered with the bishop for a eucharistic procession and mass at the cathedral. We had four members from our parish attend that event launching the Eucharistic Revival.

I’ve continued to meet with those parishioners regularly. Our Light for Love program, in which we opened up the church for the evening, and invited passersby into church to pray with us in front of the blessed Sacrament was just one event that was born out of that diocesan eucharistic synod.

Following the launch of the Revival, each diocese around the country then began to prepare to send representatives to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, which was held last month. It was the first National Congress in 80 years! 

And what a week it was! There were about four to five hundred Catholics just from our diocese, including 8 from our parish, who joined the 50 to 55 thousand Catholics from around the country for the Congress. It was truly incredible to join so many of the faithful for prayer and worship and faith formation. And even though some of the music was…not quite my style…to join so many souls in prayer for an outpouring of grace—for the Holy Spirit to deepen our love and appreciation for the Eucharist—was truly a awe-inspiring. God is at work to invigorate Catholics in our nation that we may be a light shining in the darkness.  I do hope that our Eucharistic Missionaries will be able to share with you their experience in the coming months.

The Eucharistic Congress began the final phase of the Eucharistic Revival—what the Bishops are calling the Year of Mission which will last until July of 2025. The Year of Mission. Mission, of course, comes from the latin word – missa, which means to be sent. And it is the Bishops’ desire that for the next year we seek to deepen our sense of mission—that especially through the Eucharist God missions us, he sends us into the world. God strengthens us through the eucharist for a purpose, for a reason.

We gather for Mass every week, not simply out of obligation, but because through the Mass God does something—in us, with us, through us. At Mass, we encounter Jesus Christ—we receive him— as food for the journey, the journey out of the doors of the church, into the world, in order to witness, to draw souls to Christ.

The very word Mass, comes from the same latin word, missa, mission. Jesus gathers us in order to sent us out.

In the first reading, the prophet Elijah is being sent by God on a very long mission—a forty day journey to the mountain of God, Mt Horeb—and what does God say to Elijah--"Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!" 

Similarly, in our journey to the mountain of God, heaven, Jesus gives us his flesh to be our food for the journey—because our human strength is insufficient. The Eucharist is the strength we need—it is the spiritual food for the spiritual journey—the journey of being a disciple of Jesus Christ every day—carrying our cross, forgiving our enemies, bearing wrongs patiently, and being attentive to the needs of others, sharing the truth.

The Eucharist strengthens us for the journey, but there are also a lot of things that weaken us on our missionary journey—which can even cause us to fail to finish the race. St. Paul lists some of them in our second reading: “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.” Why MUST they be removed? Because they weaken us, they cause us to stumble in the journey. These attitudes, these choices, must be set aside, or else we will not progress in the spiritual life; they diminish the life of God in us.

The Church teaches that Mass is the most important thing we are to do every week. And likely, many of us are not getting as much out of Mass each week, because we are unwilling to let go of those habits and attitudes that the word of God urges us to let go of. 

One reason to make a good holy hour each week, or to make a regular confession, is to humble ourselves before the Lord in order to let go of things that you need to let go of. So often, we are confused about God’s plans for us, or we don’t see the improvement of our relationships with family and friends as we’d like, or we’re bored or unfulfilled. It’s because of those things we are unwilling to let go of. 

But when we trust the Lord to lead us out of those toxic, sinful habits and attitudes, we come to enjoy a freedom, a reconfiguration and realignment, and a discovery of the mission for which God made us—which is the source of joy that nothing in the world can provide.

Speaking of mission and missionaries, today we welcome a true missionary, a sister of the missionaries of the holy rosary, and we will have the opportunity to support the missionary religious orders like hers in our second collection. I now invite sister to the ambo.