Our community was extremely blessed to attend and serve at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. We’ll be sharing more pictures and reflections on the experience in the coming weeks. For now, please enjoy Sr. Alicia’s reflections on the event, originally shared in the Heart of the Revival Newsletter on July 25th…
Wow. Words cannot express the sentiments of my heart as I sit here in Chicago preparing this week’s newsletter for you. Less than a week ago, we were all gathered around our Eucharistic Lord—in person and from afar—for what many of us are describing as a “before and after” experience.
We will never be the same.
Before I go any further, I want to note something: this National Eucharistic Revival is NOT OVER. Among innumerable other things, this means Heart of the Revival and The Pulse are not over either! We are committed to accompanying you as we enter into this new Eucharistic Missionary Era.
Wait, did I say ERA? Yes, I did! The Holy Spirit was like a fire hydrant. Grace flooded us at the Congress. People on the ground and at home “felt” it. For me personally, I didn’t have much of an emotional response to those astounding days of grace, but the Lord gave me a special interior gift.
During the Friday Night Revival Session, as Fr. Boniface Hicks led us through a litany of praise and repentance before Our Eucharistic Lord, I began to feel bad that I wasn’t “feeling” anything. But then, I made a simple act of trust in the Lord and a sincere choice to repent of my own sins and failings.
A little while later, I perceived an image in my heart. I saw the brick ruins of what seemed to have at one time been a beautiful building and the walls of a garden. Then, from those ruins, I saw beautiful flowers sprouting and blooming all over. It was as if this garden growing amid the rubble was far more beautiful than the building and its surroundings had ever been.
For me, this was an image of my own life: the brokenness and loss I’d experienced, turned over to Jesus, being transformed into something beautiful and fruitful. This is always how Jesus works with us: he takes what is broken and makes it far more beautiful than we could have hoped for.
We cannot even begin to imagine what Jesus has in store for us in the days, weeks, and years to come. We’ve been entrusted with magnificent graces of Eucharistic revival. Let us be attentive and open to the way in which these graces will now take root and transform our lives and make it possible for us to be instruments of renewal and conversion in the lives of others.
At the very beginning of the Congress, we were reminded that in the Beginning, God spoke, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Jesus, the Word of God, revealed himself as the Light of the World. And that light was kindled anew in our own hearts in Indianapolis last week. Jesus is calling all of us to be Eucharistic Missionaries, to Walk With One, so that with him we will be the light of the world. This is our mission: to make our Eucharistic Jesus known, loved, and served! As Cardinal Tagle said at the NEC closing Mass, let us go forth to share this Eucharistic light with everyone we encounter!
**In case you missed it, you can watch the Friday Night Revival session led by Fr. Boniface Hicks here: