Fr. Roger J. Landry
National Catholic Register
August 9, 2024
The National Eucharistic Congress was probably the greatest large-scale celebration of the Catholic faith in the United States since at least World Youth Day in Denver in 1993.
Everything was focused where it ought to be, on the Lord Jesus, in his mind-blowing Eucharistic self-gift.
The Masses themselves, though taking place in a professional football stadium, were nevertheless supremely reverent and prayerful. In a setting where multitudes are accustomed to come to cheer on athletes, bands and singers from various genres, how beautiful it was to do the same, and more, for the Creator and Savior.
The huge screens around the makeshift sanctuary gave the visual impression that one was architecturally in a magnificent cathedral and focused the eyes not just on the pulpit and altar, but on images like the Sacred Heart, the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit.
The music was diverse but sacred, expertly integrated by Dave and Lauren Moore, with the help of musicians from across the country. Together they led everyone in singing psalms, Gregorian chants, classical and original hymns, and well-known praise and worship songs, bringing those at Mass into harmony as the faithful organically sought — as one body, one spirit, and one choir in Christ — to welcome and worship God.
A similar spirit pervaded the times of adoration, where the focus was clearly on the Eucharist as Jesus was brought into Lucas Oil Stadium, placed on the altar, praised, glorified and eventually raised in blessing.
The lighting, mainly artificial and engineered — but in the opening ceremony an extraordinary natural spotlight coming from the stadium’s western windows — helped everyone’s eyes stay affixed to the Light of the World. The music, once again, blended styles old and new, featuring Latin, English and Spanish, making it easy for those present to lift up their hearts to God.
The reverence that pervaded the stadium was similarly found in the perpetual adoration at St. John the Evangelist Church across the street and in the smaller Masses held throughout the Congress.
There were fine speakers chosen, including some of the country’s most well-known Catholics, but they were happily not the focus of the Congress. Like John the Baptist, they all humbly sought to point out the Eucharistic Lamb of God, to decrease so that he might increase.
Arriving as I did from 60 days helping to carry the Eucharistic Jesus from New Haven, Connecticut to Indianapolis as part of the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, I had a different experience than most attendees. What for almost everyone was an experience of exhilaration and soul-expansion was for me and my fellow pilgrims one of understandable exhaustion and decompression.
The inversion of the normal experience began when we checked into the hotel. I couldn’t believe the joy I had being able to unpack a suitcase for the first time in two months, exulting to be in a place I’d be able to call “home” for five days. I mentioned this grace to a young mom the night of our arrival; she said she, her husband and their newborn had just had the opposite experience, lamenting the “exile” they would have in a similar room!
During the opening ceremony, the National Eucharistic pilgrims, after videos had been shown with highlights of our four respective journeys, had the thrilling privilege to process in with images of our route’s patrons, cheered on by nearly 50,000 people. The experience, nevertheless, was anticlimactic, compared to the privilege my fellow pilgrims and I had, over the previous 60 days, to carry the Eucharistic Jesus everywhere, something that can relativize even the otherwise most electrifying of human experiences.
Similarly, as awesome as adoring the Lord solemnly among tens of thousands was, it couldn’t match the intensity of holding him in your hands for hours on the sultry streets or adoring him in our pilgrimage van. Moreover, as great as the speakers were, there was something special about observing the Holy Spirit hijack your fellow pilgrims as we were summoned to preach and give witness in multiple languages.
To say the least, it was strange for all of us during the Congress to be experiencing something markedly different from most other attendees — and a sign of just how much our two-month national trek with Jesus had changed us.
The one part of the Congress that was an intensification of our time on the road was the Eucharistic procession through downtown Indianapolis. It was the largest Blessed Sacrament procession our country has seen in decades, with tens of thousands in the street and tens of thousands, in some places up to 30 deep, on the respective sidewalks.
There are a few things about the procession I’ll never forget.
The first was before we hit the road. As seminarians and then religious began to process out of the Indiana Convention Center toward where the procession would officially begin, the bishops and priests applauded them for minutes. As the several thousand priests processed out toward St. John the Evangelist Church, the several hundred bishops met them with similarly exuberant clapping. After more than 20 years of difficulties and suspicions between bishops and priests as a result of the fallout from the clergy sex abuse crisis, it seemed to be a truly cathartic moment for priests and bishops alike.
When we got into the streets, throughout the entirety of the journey, faithful from both sides of the road were enthusiastically shouting, “We love our priests!,” “Thank you for giving us Jesus!” and comparable exclamations. A similar thing was happening to the bishops behind us, as multitudes were greeting them with incessant verbal and non-verbal affection and gratitude. To call this edifying and moving does not do it justice.
The procession ended at the Indiana War Memorial, originally designed to honor those who died in World War I and to serve as the national headquarters of the American Legion. The largest war memorial project in the country, completed between 1927-1960, designed after the Mausoleum of Halicarnusses, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, this 210-foot high neoclassical edifice was an eminently fitting backdrop, as the Lord and the successors of his apostles ascended its many stairs to the elevated promontory where an altar had been set up.
Behind the altar where Jesus was placed was a huge bronze door with inscriptions on the top and bottom of the doors’ two sides: “Spirit” and “Life” at the top and “Light” and “Truth” at the bottom. These are all titles of the Lord Jesus: Jesus identified himself as the “door” to the sheepfold, as the “light of the world” and the “truth” who would set us free; and in his great Bread of Life discourse he stated that his words on the Eucharist are “spirit” and “life” (Jn 10:9; 8:12; 14:6; 6:63).
It was almost as if the War Memorial had been waiting nearly a century for Jesus to come as the fulfillment of his architecture and Biblical inscriptions.
In sacred architecture, doors are meant to signify a passage from the world into a sacred reality, and as Jesus was adored there by nearly 60,000 people, it was as if he was calling us to Eucharistic conversion, as we enter into communion with him who is the gate of the sheepfold, our light, life and truth, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Some have mentioned it felt strange to have adoration and benediction at a memorial to war, but I wonder whether that is because many don’t take seriously that Jesus came, as he testified, to bring not peace but the sword, to light a fire on earth, to defeat as the Stronger Man the diabolical strong man and divide his spoils, to give his life on the battlefield, against thieves, wolves and marauders, out of love to save his friends (Mt 10:34; Lk 12:49; Mt 12:29; Jn 15:13).
The Eucharist is, in fact, his great living war memorial, which each day actualizes his victory and brings us to share his triumph.
The Eucharistic procession was what ultimately united the Congress and National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
It also showed the way ahead for the missionary phase of the continued Eucharistic Revival, as moved by the Holy Spirit we take Jesus out as light, truth, and life, with the bravery of soldiers, inviting others to come to meet, know, love, worship, receive, announce and journey with the Victor, the Lion humbly reigning as a Lamb, the Good Shepherd seeking to lead us to the eternal fold (Rev 5:5-8; Jn 10:3).
