Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Catholic Register
June 21, 2025
The three-year Eucharistic Revival of the Church in the United States, which began on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi three years ago (June 19, 2022), will conclude this Sunday on the same Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.
The Revival has been a courageous initiative, originally proposed by Bishop Robert Barron and championed and led by his successor as head of the US Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, Bishop Andrew Cozzens.
With over 90 percent their brother bishops supporting it, it had four main objectives: to reinvigorate the worship of God at Mass, to foster personal encounter with the Eucharistic Jesus in adoration, to get to know our Eucharistic faith much more robustly, and to commit ourselves to living and sharing our Eucharistic faith through charity and mission.
The formal end of the Revival will take place in Los Angeles on Corpus Christi Sunday. The St. Katherine Drexel Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will end with a Mass celebrated by the apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, with L.A. Archbishop José Gomez preaching and Bishop Cozzens in attendance. It will be followed by a Eucharistic Procession and a Benediction over the much suffering city, and then a final Benediction within the Cathedral.
It’s fitting that the Revival concludes with a double Eucharistic blessing, since the Revival has been an enormous blessing for the Church in the United States, a blessing that is meant not to be final but ongoing. Just as Jesus ascended into heaven with his hand raised in blessing over us (Lk 24:51), a sign that he never ceases to bless us, so Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is constantly trying to fill us, in himself, with “every spiritual blessing in the heavens” (Eph 1:3).
These last three years have been a key part of the much-needed renewal of the Church in the United States.
All the way back to St. Augustine, Church figures have emphasized, Ecclesia semper reformanda, meaning the Church is always needing to be reformed, reshaped, revitalized.
Likewise from the Church’s earliest days, saints have Ecclesia de Eucharistia vivit, the Church lives by the Eucharist, the phrase St. John Paul II chose for his 2004 Eucharistic Encyclical.
Synthesizing both phrases we could affirm, Ecclesia semper revivens de Eucharistia: the Church is always being brought to life anew by means of the Eucharistic Jesus. This happens principally by means of the celebration of the Mass, which, because it brings us into communion with Jesus himself, is the source and summit, root and center of the Church, and therefore the means by which the Church is continuously reshaped, reconfigured, reconstituted as Jesus’ Mystical Body and Bride.
So while the groundbreaking three-year initiative of the Church in the United States is formally ending on Corpus Christi, the ongoing Eucharistic Revival of the Church in the United States will take place every time one of the country’s 37,000 priests celebrates Mass, someone comes to Mass, receives Jesus worthily in Holy Communion, adores him in the tabernacle or monstrance, brings him to the sick, accompanies him in procession, prays to him a spiritual communion, unites one’s sufferings to his, or seeks to model one’s life on his words of consecration.
We need that ongoing reform, the continual Eucharistic reshaping of the Church’s daily life, because while the objectives of the formal Eucharistic Revival have demonstrably been advanced, there is still much progress to make.
Among the fruits of the Revival is clearly the uptick in Mass attendance, which has returned to pre-COVID levels after decreasing by a quarter by the end of the pandemic. After seven decades of a downward slope from 75 percent to 16 percent, to have Mass attendance rise to 24 percent in three years is a great sign of hope. There have also been dramatic increases in the size of OCIA programs during the Revival, especially on college campuses.
While there are several causes for the sudden rebound, one must clearly be the attention the Church has given to the Mass during the Revival, to inviting people (back) one-by-one, and to proclaiming that Mass isn’t fundamentally a religious ceremony but is an encounter with Jesus Christ himself, sacramentally present, the same Jesus who was once in Mary’s womb, held in Joseph’s arms, pinned to the Cross and risen from the dead. He just looks different.
While the progress is inarguable, three of four Catholics still do not prioritize Mass on Sunday and ex-Catholics, after Catholics, are the second most numerous religious category in the country. That’s why the revival is just getting started!
Another fruit of the Revival is the explosion in Eucharistic adoration, especially among young Catholics, and in Eucharistic processions.
Anyone who works with young Catholics on campus or in youth groups can attest that young people who practice the faith have a great hunger to spend time in prayerful adoration of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Youth conferences now feature Eucharistic holy hours and many young people not only say that it’s the highlight of the whole event but, especially for those just being introduced to it, one of the most powerful experiences in their life.
With regard to processions, in which Catholics courageously take the Eucharistic Jesus out of their Churches into the world he redeemed, there have been not only the five routes of the National Eucharistic Procession, a statewide procession through New Hampshire, another along the length of Long Island and yet another among the 21 missions along the California coast, but there seem to have been more parish Corpus Christi processions the last two years than at any time since the 1960s.
While we give thanks for the advances made, we know that there are still many who still don’t prioritize time personal encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist. There are even some influential prelates who publicly have complained that the Revival has focused too much on Eucharistic adoration and processions, a comment that only makes sense if they believe the Eucharist is something rather than Someone. This is another reason why the revival is just beginning!
Perhaps the most noteworthy fruit of the Revival has been the enormously successful National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis last July — the first such Congress in 83 years — and the National Eucharistic Pilgrimages leading up to it, the first such nationwide procession in the history of the Catholic Church, in any country. Nearly 60,000 came to the Congress. Many more participated along the two-month 6,500-mile cruciform national Eucharistic procession. Millions more were riveted to coverage on EWTN. Against many pessimists who thought that both would fail, faithful in great numbers gave witness to their Eucharistic faith and love. They showed that the Church can indeed do big things in lavish gratitude toward Jesus for his Eucharistic fulfillment of his promise to be with us always until the end of time.
At the same time, we know that there are 62 million Catholics in the United States, which means that basically only one of 1,000 Catholics was in Indianapolis. One more reason why the revival is just commencing!
What are the next steps that should be taken? I’d like to suggest a few.
First, we should thank God for all the graces poured out during the Revival. God cannot be outdone in generosity and has proven it by the Revival’s obvious fruits and in the just as real, but more hidden, ones.
Second, every member of the faithful should make the Revival personal and ask how he or she can grow in Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, gratitude, love and life moving ahead. How can we make the fire the Revival has ignited a bonfire within us and around us?
Third, we need to build on the successes by continuing to work on the Revival’s fundamental pillars. There’s much work to be done to reinvigorate worship in many of our parishes, to start or increase time for adoration, to get to know our Eucharistic faith better, or to have it overflow into life. We can and must ask:
How do we increase reverence in priests and faithful and assist them to participate more fully in the Mass?
How do strengthen belief in Jesus’ real presence through the way we receive and train others to receive Holy Communion? Do we have the courage to test whether receiving on the tongue or hand, kneeling or standing, leads to greater faith and love for the Eucharistic Jesus?
How do we help the whole Church grasp that the Holy Spirit, through the Mass and Holy Communion, wants to make us truly “one body, one Spirit in Christ” so that we can bring the whole world into Trinitarian communion?
How do priests and faithful help our liturgies overflow with infectious thanksgiving and joy such that they will magnetically draw our family members back and keep them coming?
How do we end the devil-delighting “liturgy wars” through a generous and humble appreciation of every valid form by which Jesus sacramentally comes from heaven to the altar and into us?
Between this Corpus Christi and the next National Eucharistic Congress in 2029, there’s plenty of work for us to do — and much work that the Eucharistic Jesus wants to do in each of us and in his Church in the United States. Let’s get to it. Ecclesia semper revivens de Eucharistia.