A perfect gift of love

The atmosphere was electric! Almost 60,000 faithful Catholics filled Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 17 for the opening session of the 10^th National Eucharistic Congress. The massive gathering was the first Eucharistic Congress in the United States in 83 years, and the crowd was on fire, singing along with praise and worship music and cheering the delegations from the four Eucharistic Pilgrimage processions that made their way across the country to Indianapolis after encountering thousands of faithful along the way.

Then silence. A hush fell among the faithful as the Most Reverend Andrew Cozzens, Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston, Minn., and chair of the National Eucharistic Revival for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), processed in with the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. The lights in the stadium came down with the exception of several spotlights following the monstrance as it made its way to the altar at the center of the stadium.

“What I saw as the Eucharist processed all through the arena, was astonishing,” said Monsignor James Shea, President of the University of Mary in Bismarck, and a presenter at one of the daily impact sessions. “To look around me and see all my students kneeling there, worshipping the Lord, deeply moved by his presence in Lucas Oil Stadium. Our students are looking around, and they know that they’re not alone. This is so important, because Jesus says, don’t be afraid.”

To many who were in attendance, that moment set the tone for what would be an extraordinary five days of prayer, revival, adoration, and renewed devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the true body, blood, soul, and divinity present for all. As one bishop in attendance recalled, one of the workers at the event was astounded as to how such a great crowd could go silent in adoration. The worker was in awe, and remarked that something special was truly present in the stadium that night.

The National Eucharistic Congress was a major part of the USCCB’s on-going three-year National Eucharistic Revival, an effort to re-educate and re-introduce Catholics to the true nature of the Holy Eucharist they encounter at least weekly during Mass. Bishops of the United States were astounded to learn that, according to a PEW Research Center study, that only one-third of Catholics believe in transubstantiation, that during Mass, the bread and wine used for Communion become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, which is central to the Catholic faith.

 The survey, published in 2019, revealed that most self-described Catholics don’t believe this core teaching. In fact, nearly seven-in-ten Catholics (69%) say they personally believe that during Mass, the bread and wine used in Communion “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” In his prayer before the monstrance at the opening session, Bishop Cozzens called upon the Holy Spirit to lead a new revival.

“Lord, we want revival, a Eucharistic Revival,” prayed Bishop Cozzens. “We want every Catholic to realize that you are alive in the Eucharist and to encounter your love present here and be converted. We want every Catholic to come back to Sunday Mass, so that you may be worshiped. Lord, we know that for this revival to happen it must begin with us, we who are gathered here, your bishops, your priests, your consecrated religious, you faithful people young and old, your families. Lord we desire deeper conversion.”

Internationally known speakers invited to share their thoughts at the Congress addressed this desire for deeper conversion during the daily breakout sessions and at the evening gatherings. One of the presenters who spoke on the Eucharist and evangelization was Father Mike Schmitz from the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., host of the popular “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year podcast series.”

“Where can there be a moment of evangelization regarding the Eucharist?” asked Father Schmitz. “I think proclaiming the word. I think unpacking the Bible in a way that just says, okay, here are all the parts of the Bible that point to Jesus and the Eucharist. And that’s one thing that’s so important. Another thing is adoration. I really believe it can become a place where Jesus gets to win hearts to himself. We realize that every conversion is an act of grace. Every conversion is a miracle.”

Dovetailing on the theme of Eucharistic adoration was contemporary Christian recording artist Matt Maher, himself a devout Catholic whose works reflect Catholic doctrine, and bring the tenants of the faith to a world-wide audience. Maher rocked Lucas Oil Stadium on the last evening of the Congress, but said he was especially honored to lead worship during adoration.

“I think the gift of Eucharistic adoration in particular is a deepening of the faith in the Eucharist,” said Maher at a media conference held before the evening session. “One of the tensions for us as Catholics is that we’re in an arena with (thousands) of people adoring Christ in the Eucharist, but we’re going to have to contend with the fact that we’re going to go home on Sunday, or we went to a Mass, and the very thing that we were adoring, we’re now receiving. So we become living tabernacles. So my hope is that everybody would walk out of here going, oh man, I’m a living tabernacle.”

 “The New Evangelization is the Old Evangelization,” said Monsignor Shea. “It’s the proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Yes, it’s new in art or method, expression, and circumstances, but it’s the same thing. And what we’ve become poor at, because we’ve become complacent, is that we’re not preaching the Gospel with all of its overpowering, overwhelming, shockingly epic, high saga force. And that’s what we’ve got to learn how to do again, so that we’re capturing not just hearts, but minds.”
 
Pilgrims share of Christ encounters, revived souls
            
The Diocese of Fargo sent just over 100 pilgrims to the National Eucharistic Congress, traveling by bus (which at times broke down along the way) to take part. Priests, deacons, religious, single adults, couples, and families made up the Fargo contingent.

“For me and for all of our pilgrims from the Diocese of Fargo, this was an occasion to rejoice and give thanks for the gift of the Eucharist, and to pray for our families, our diocese, and our Church,” said Bishop John Folda. “Every pilgrim I spoke with expressed their amazement and their gratitude for this beautiful event, and I have no doubt that our Lord is present and working among us.”

Holding the official National Eucharistic Congress Rosary in her palms on the bus ride home from Indianapolis, Patty Vasek got a little choked up.

“It was a joy to travel this journey with our son. He helped design this monstrance,” she said, pointing to the middle of the beads, to the tiny replica of the congress’s official ostensorium, and referring to Crookston Diocese’s Father Craig Vasek. Father Vasek was working for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C., at the time Bishop Andrew Cozzens was named head of the national event. Cozzens asked him to assist with initial planning.

Along with helping design the monstrance, Patty explained, “Father Craig had the honor of carrying it, by foot, from a hotel in Rome to the Vatican to be blessed by Pope Francis. One night at the congress, while at adoration in Lucas Oil Stadium, Father Vasek told his folks, “That thing is heavy. I carried it for three hours!”

To now have seen their priest son in Indianapolis—which wasn’t guaranteed—and have his blessing over the new Rosary that bears his imprint, naturally elicited motherly emotion. “He loves his bishop and was happy to serve in that capacity,” she said, noting their shared joy at “seeing all these things coming together, that he helped organize and plan.”

Patty, whose husband, Ron, and two sisters also joined the Fargo group, said three “aha” moments at the event gripped her: the silence of worshipping the Eucharistic Jesus in a large stadium; the youth rushing unhindered to be near him; and the impressive priestly processions that started and ended every Mass. 

Not even the two Fargo buses breaking down en route could rob her of her joy. “I knew we were on a pilgrimage, and that we would get to where we needed to be when we were supposed to.” 

For Ron, who admitted to carrying some “righteous anger” from a past injustice experienced within the Church, the Congress brought healing. “You’ll never forget,” a priest told him in Confession, “but it’s what you do with that that matters.” He needed to hear that, he said, along with words from a speaker who described God’s thoughtfulness in designing us. “God took time with each of us,” he said. “No one is an accident.”
 
‘How much more does the real Jesus love me?’
            
Elizabeth Thompson, Sts. Anne and Joachim parish, was the newest Catholic of the Fargo pilgrims, having just been received into the Church in November 2023. She’d joined RCIA (now OCIA) after experiencing a series of intense sufferings in a short period, and watching an episode of The Chosen, starring Jonathan Roumie as Jesus, on her phone one evening.

“When he said, ‘For I have called you by name; you are mine,’ I dropped my phone and went to bed and bawled.” Later, it hit her: “He’s just an actor. How much more does the real Jesus love me?”

A lifelong Evangelical who’d believed Catholics didn’t really know Jesus, Thompson said when she learned of Roumie’s Catholic faith, it ignited a transformation of heart. Though Roumie spoke at the Congress, there was more that drew her there. 

“I’ve just fallen in love with everything about the Catholic faith,” Thompson said, likening the Congress experience to a “firehose” that kept pouring out refreshment. “The devotion, everything; it’s all so rich.”

One night, during adoration, the emotions rushed out. “I laid my head down on the cushion of the chair, and this gal beside me just started rubbing my back, and a priest started fumbling through his backpack to find a Kleenex,” she said, noting that she “felt surrounded” by love.
 
‘I was gazing at him, and him at me!’
            
While she never officially left the Church, the early spiritual journey of Cathy Urlaub of Holy Cross Church, West Fargo, was marked with confusion and wrong turns, she admitted. But a decade ago, after a divorce without annulment and remarriage to a Protestant, something began to stir in her soul, setting her on a quest to learn the truth. “I love the Old Testament and I saw our (Catholic) faith so much there.” 

In time, Urlaub began to understand why she couldn’t receive the Eucharist, and her desire for reconciliation grew. While waiting for an annulment to go through, a priest advised her to begin attending daily Mass, and Urlaub was overcome by the “graces upon graces” that flowed just from receiving Jesus spiritually.

“I felt like I couldn’t even stand (before him). I needed to kneel,” she said, recalling Psalm 42:1: “Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul longs for you, my God. He was so patient with me,” she continued. “But I think that longing has just deepened my yearning,” remarking how she desires now to tell others of God’s great mercy.

At adoration one evening at the Congress, Urlaub was seated on the floor level as the priest processed down her aisle with the Eucharist, and suddenly, they stopped in front of her. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of (Jesus). It felt like I was literally gazing at him, and he was gazing at me. It was so profound.”

Her roommate and friend, Tammy Stevens, said the beauty of the Congress reversed the negativity we constantly hear about the Church. “It’s almost like it’s a secret, like it’s sacred to us,” she said, “but we need everybody to have that feeling.”
 
“Like two different dimensions”
            
Joanne Poehls, St. Elizabeth’s in Dilworth, Minn., said she was struck by the contrast between the world inside the stadium and conference center and outside in the streets of Indianapolis. “You felt like you were in two dimensions. One with God, and the other one maybe more like hell,” she said, describing the loud noises and vulgarity of the city. And yet, the two mixed in a beautiful way that week, she said, noting frequent moments of Catholics praying over locals, and street people with Rosaries around their necks and boxes of food nearby. 

“There was a presence of Jesus in us, helping others on the outside, on the streets,” she said, recalling watching two nuns bend down to talk to a girl sitting on the ground, holding a sign seeking help. “What a great thing to be able to show them the love of Christ, and that they’re just as important to God. We’re all his children!”

Poehls said her favorite part was the climax: the Lord processing in the Eucharist through the streets of the city.  “It was so awesome, seeing Jesus coming, and being surrounding by the thousands of people through the streets,” she said. “It really takes you back in time, like you were there when he was alive, in a different form.”

There was an urgency about it all, she said, an exhortation to be vigilant and intentional. “We’ve got a big job to do, but first of all, we’ve got to repent.” 

Prior to the pilgrimage, she said, her soul felt “flatlined,” and “tired.” But the Congress renewed her hope and zeal. “It was exactly what it was supposed to be—a revival, to revive us.”
 
“A stream of faith flowing”
            
Deacon Paul Schneider, Holy Spirit Church, Fargo, and his wife, Anne, one of a handful of deacon couples with the Diocese, described the “amazing atmosphere” of Indianapolis.

“We were way up high distributing Communion, and there was just a stream of white (vestments) in the middle of the people,” Deacon Paul said. “It was reflective of the great cloud of witnesses, the priesthood and the people of God, and you get the image of a river, a stream of faith flowing.” 

That image struck Anne, too. “At the very first Mass, when all these men were coming in, in white, it just hit me that all of these people have committed themselves to Christ,” she said, responding to the large presence of priests, noting that she had “a very close moment” to Jesus in the midst of the beauty of the music and people at one of the Masses. “I have been given so much; my heart’s filled with joy!”
 
“God means for us to be here”
            
Jill Backlund, a math teacher at Shanley High School in Fargo, said the Congress brought an opportunity to deepen her faith after being away from the Church a while back. “I feel like I’m making up for lost time.”

The Congress inspired a desire to share the experience with her students, she said, including through classroom décor updates. “I want to remind them that each of them is put here as a gift for the world, and that God means for them to be here.”

Janelle Shanilec of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fargo, said she’s been to some wonderful Marian Eucharistic Congresses in Fargo, “but I had no idea the Congress was going to be this large; this beautiful.” Experiencing the magnitude of so many Catholics on their knees before the Lord, in a stadium usually filled with sporting events, caused Shanilec to think, “God, you’re finally being glorified the way you deserve!” 

And very early in the morning, she and her roommate rose to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet at St. John’s Catholic Church, just blocks from the hotel. On the way, they passed young women dressed like prostitutes, she said. “The night life was alive and busy.”

As the two Fargo pilgrims stepped into the church, they were surprised to see others had gotten there first. “There were two large groups of religious sisters in there ahead of us. It was beautiful to see them at 3 a.m.,” she said, praying for the world.

Mary Kay Willits, Holy Cross Church, said she’s not much of a traveler, but when her longtime friend, Diane Kelly, called her three years ago to tell her about the Congress, she felt “a twinge of something.” It was related to spiritual visions she often experiences, especially after receiving the Eucharist, she said. “When I received Him the last time (at the Congress), the tears flowed as I got back to my seat,” she recounted. “Now I can share that with others, and I’ll be free to say, simply, ‘The Real Presence is a gift,’ without going on and on.”

Kelly said that as a main caregiver for her husband, she asked God what he wanted her to experience and bring home. “Bottom line, I need to keep the focus on God. And I have to continually do that,” she said, including through leaning on others.

Formerly of the Fargo Diocese, now in Bismarck, Deacon Les Noehre and his wife, Annette, were struck by a story they heard from a deacon friend who was talking to a homeless person, and, before leaving, asked the man for prayers. “Immediately, he grabbed (the deacon’s) hand and prayed, and he said it was the most beautiful prayer he’d ever heard.”
 
“The Church is living, growing”
            
On one of the two Fargo buses, the oldest and youngest pilgrims shared their takeaways, including Virginia Goerger of St. John the Baptist Church in Wyndmere, who was 1-year-old in 1941 when a National Eucharistic Congress last convened in our nation. 

“I’m going to be 84 this week,” she said on the return trip. “When they said they hadn’t had one of these in 83 years, I knew I had to come.”

Goerger, a widow who has raised three children and been all over the world as a photographer and traveler, said she rarely turns down an opportunity for adventure, and was thrilled to be on the trip, despite an injured arm. 

“It kind of blows you away when you see 115 bishops and 1,000 priests from all over the United States, and nuns of every sort, along with all these little families,” she said. “When (Bishop Cozzens) said the next one would be in 2033, though, I thought, ‘Well, I might not make that one.’ But I would encourage everyone else to go!”

The youngest Fargo pilgrim, Emily White, 28, music and liturgy director at St. Michael’s in Grand Forks, appreciated the impactful silence of the Congress. “I was thinking, ‘I don’t think the Lucas Oil Stadium has ever had that big of a crowd so silent in its whole history,’” she said. “It was a reminder that the Church is still living and growing, and there’s a future for the Church. And like the Lord said, ‘The gates of hell will not prevail.’”

Her friend Sara Lahr said being with so many people united in the faith was something she needed more than she realized. “There was this little foretaste of, ‘Oh, this is what heaven will be like,’” she said. “And the words, ‘It is right and just’ kept echoing.”
 
A bittersweet ending
            
Father James Gross, pastor of St. Mary’s in Grand Forks, one of three priests traveling with the Fargo Diocese, said he went to Indianapolis anticipating “wonderful talks, praying and worshipping,” but the experience brought far more. 

“There was a spiritual impact that was more profound than I thought it would be,” he said, especially with the focus on healing and repentance. “The Lord put some things on my heart that I wasn’t expecting,” which caused “a lot of introspection, and almost melancholy,” he added, but “as the conference went on, the Lord lifted a lot of that.” Sister Josephine Garrett’s talk on healing reminded him, “We’re all in this boat together. Let’s realize where we are right now, and know the Lord wants to take us deeper into a relationship with him.”

Gross said it was hard to walk away. “When the Mass ended on Sunday, there was a tinge of sadness on my heart. I had gotten used to coming to every intersection and meeting (joy-filled) people from all over the country,” he remarked, adding, “It’s now up to us to go share what Jesus has revealed to us.”

Jeannine Seitz said, chuckling, “My heart got hit so much, it’s almost full of holes,” noting that observing the diversity of the church, including a priest celebrating Mass in sign language, left her inspired. 

She, too, noted the challenge of returning to the real world, yet acknowledged, “The real world isn’t reality. We just lived reality when we experienced (over) 50,000 people singing Benediction together!”

Seitz seems to carry the sentiment that despite how often the Church is pummeled in today’s world, the true Catholic life can’t be conveyed in negative headlines, but only witnessed through a life lived in Christian charity. And that seemed to be on full display in Indianapolis one vibrant week mid-summer, causing some to declare in their minds, amid their glad communion: “This is the Church!”

The National Eucharistic Revival does not stop in Indianapolis. It is now the charge of every diocese in the United States to carry on a Year of Mission.

“Allow me to invite all of you to our own diocesan Redeemed Eucharistic Congress, which will be held in Jamestown Sept. 6–7,” said Bishop Folda. “This diocesan event will be a time of blessing for all of us. As we accept our mission to share the gift of faith with others, Jesus offers himself in the Eucharist to strengthen us for this mission. Jesus gives the gift of his flesh ‘for the life of the world.’ So let us come to him with thanksgiving and bring many others along with us to receive the gift that we have received.”

Information on the Diocese of Fargo Redeemed Eucharistic Congress may be found at www.fargodiocese.org/redeemed.