Living Eucharist

Faithful Seek to Understand the Awesome

JAMIE PILARCZYK

Issue 02 | March & April 2009

Deep emotion comes over Eileen Brock when she shares in the Eucharist at Mass or in the homes of the frail parishioners she visits, and she sought to better understand what she and others feel.

“I have grown in awe at how important the Eucharist is to the people I bring it to,” said Brock, an extraordinary minister of holy Communion and minister to the sick and homebound at her parish, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Citrus Springs. “When I go to Mass and into their homes, I feel transformed.”

That spiritual quest brought Brock from her Dunnellon home to the Tampa Convention Center in late February to join more than 3,000 others in a daylong opportunity to learn and grow. The occasion was the Diocese of St. Petersburg’s second Living Eucharist conference, which drew its theme, “Nourished,” from the second phase of Bishop Robert N. Lynch’s three-year initiative to deepen the understanding of the sacrament. The diocesewide effort to form faith is guided by the bishop’s November 2007 pastoral letter, “Living Eucharist: Gathered, Nourished, Sent.”

“(‘Nourished’) takes us into the heart of the sacrament itself,” Bishop Lynch said.

By studying the Liturgy of the Word, he said, he hopes people understand what it means to live the word and recognize the presence of God in the word. When participants have a full understanding of exactly what they are participating in, of what they are receiving, they are transformed, he explained.

“Nourished, strengthened and emboldened, we can become who and what we receive,” the bishop said.

Brock said reading the pastoral letter made her thirsty for more. She said the words Feb. 21 from the conference keynote speaker, Chicago-based theologian Father Edward Foley, helped “to bring that feeling to concrete understanding.”

Brock can remember how heartfelt her first Communion day was, and those of her children and her grandchildren.

“But you forget,” she said.

Father Foley, a Capuchin Franciscan, said Catholics need a reawakening like that of Brock so as to come to the celebration of the Mass with a renewed understanding of what is happening when the Church is gathered.

“If truth be told, for most Roman Catholics the eucharistic prayer is often something more to be watched rather than prayed, to be seen rather than heard, more a moment of ... observation rather than one of profound and essential participation,” said Father Foley, a professor of liturgy and music at Catholic Theological Union.

“But if there is no profession of faith during this great thanksgiving, if we do not assent, grasp, acknowledge and embrace the substrata of faith that echoes throughout this prayer under the guise of paschal mystery; if the eucharistic prayer is not the arena in which the faithful exercise their fundamental belief, then I fear the consecration will only be partial. For, yes, the elements will be changed but we will not be changed. And to what good the transformation of bread and a cup of wine into the body and blood of Christ if the baptized are not similarly transformed?”

He said participants get caught up in the chaos of life, distractions within the church and within themselves. He said it is especially important during the eucharistic prayer to put those aside and come into the moment.

“Unfortunately, we are usually so busy scurrying to our knees, kneelers dropping, neighbors elbowed, missalettes flying, that we give little attention to the faith just professed,” Father Foley said.

“We little attend to the awesome texts proclaimed that have acknowledged that God is God and that we are not; texts that announce the Eternal One as the living definition of holiness; and texts that relentlessly admit Sunday after Sunday and season after season that the entire universe, heaven and earth, here and beyond – and not just this church building – are permeated with the divine glory.”

For many of those in the crowd, to hear Father Foley speak was like a homecoming. Many of them had crossed paths before during their years of service to the diocese, their parishes, schools and other ministries.

Lynn Edmonds, director of faith formation at St. Raphael Parish in St. Petersburg, attended the first conference in 2008 – “Gathered” – and was eager to be there in 2009.

“I have a master’s degree in religious education, but there still are many things you can continue to learn about eucharistic liturgy,” Edmonds said. “It gives me all kinds of tidbits to share with other people as I teach about the Eucharist.”

Edmonds lamented that the conferences will not be ongoing.

“I’m actually kind of sad that the third one is going to be the closing one. I’m really kind of sad that the next one will be the end of it,” she said. “They are very well done and very life-giving.”

Already on the calendar is next year’s culmination conference, “Sent,” which is scheduled for April 30 and May 1 at the Tampa Convention Center. Before then, Bishop Lynch hopes that participants in “Nourished” share the experience with the rest of their parishes, igniting faith and reverence in the Eucharist.

“We need not wait until Easter Sunday to approach the Lord Jesus, to receive him in the breaking of the bread and to share his good news with others,” the bishop said. “In our hearts and minds we can leave this place today, living out John the Baptist’s words: Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

“Believe it. Embrace it. Share it.”

Pilarcyzk is a Tampa-based freelance writer.