Not going to Indy? I’m sorry I won’t see you there. But take heart. You aren’t missing anything truly important. Don’t get me wrong, the event is worth attending. There’ll be huge crowds, stacks of speakers and a few very nicely choreographed moments to remember. People who do go will be buoyed by old friends and new. And honestly, nobody throws a better party than Catholics do.
Those unable to be there for whatever reason may feel a bit like Cinderella without a ticket to the ball. But the most substantial and life changing things scheduled to take place at the National Eucharistic Congress are available to almost every Catholic right where they are. They always have been and they always will be.
And that’s the point of the Eucharistic Revival anyway, isn’t it? The God who is being itself, the supreme mystery in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), remains with us – sacramentally – until the end of time. We may be lost, but God is not. The Eucharist shows us where he abides. Or, as St. John Paul II once wrote in poetry, “Learn from me, children how to hide, for that is where I abide.”
The Eternal Word became flesh and “pitched his tent” among us (Jn 1:14). Christ “emptied himself” (Phil 2:7) and assumed our human nature. And on the night he was betrayed, Jesus humbled himself even further, and transformed bread and wine into his Body and Blood. In this great gift of self, God makes it possible for us to receive him, not just figuratively or symbolically, but with all that we are. In Holy Communion, we receive him bodily and spiritually.
Eucharist means that the Son of God is still Emmanuel, “God-With-Us.” He lives among us because he is one of us. The “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” says it powerfully: “By his Incarnation, the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 22).
For the past two months, the four pilgrimage processions converging in Indianapolis have enjoyed a steady stream of media coverage. Sincere and devout Catholics along the routes have not been shy in expressing their excitement. Understandably, many joyfully announced, “Jesus is coming,” or “He” is here.
But these pilgrimages – as deeply inspiring as they have been – did not bring Jesus anywhere he couldn’t already be found. Rather, they highlighted the truth that Christ Jesus dwells in the Most Blessed Sacrament. They reminded us that Jesus Christ can be found in all the tabernacles of the world. If revival is to take root in our Church, we must embrace that reality with everything we’ve got. We must learn how to live our whole lives in the light of Eucharistic truth and according to it. And we must do so consistently, that is, daily. Whether we are traveling to Indianapolis or not, what we all do after July 21 will be far more important than what we do during the five days that precede it.
God is with us, wherever we are. The sanctuary lamp is lit in every parish to show us where we can experience Emmanuel. We do that when we commit ourselves to just a little more than what we’ve managed before: by attending Mass one more day of the week; by making the holy 10 minutes we have instead of waiting for the hour we can’t find; by bringing Communion to those who cannot receive it otherwise; by reading the Eucharistic Prayers.
Experience teaches us that the mountaintop moments we long for and dream of cannot sustain our faith for long. But they can return us to the essentials – the staples of Christian discipleship – that do. Large scale gatherings encourage us. It’s uplifting to see that following Christ is not a lonely pursuit. Ultimately, however, it is a personal one. The Church of Jesus Christ is built one soul at a time and one day at a time. This revival is for all of us. It becomes ours when we decide to make it our own.
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a sinner, Catholic convert, freelance writer and editor, musician, speaker, pet-aholic, wife and mom of eight grown children, loving life in New Orleans.