Eucharistic Congress provides loads of graces and glories to unpack

“Beautiful.”

“Nothing can compare.”

“A gift of love.”

“Powerful.”

“A foretaste of Heaven.”

“Absolutely amazing.”

“A new chapter in the Church.”

Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Omaha used those words to describe what they experienced at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

They said the July 17-21 event – where nearly 60,000 people gathered to worship Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament – was life changing for themselves, their families and the Church.

Clare Fletcher, who led a group of 12 high school students and four adults to the Congress, described it as a “watershed moment.”

 “I think it was a watershed moment, but not because of the speakers, who were excellent, the sessions, which were well planned and said very good and true things that needed saying, or even the random people who met Jesus for the first time in a triumphal procession through the streets, which is frankly typical of His daily Providence,” said Fletcher, a campus minister at Roncalli Catholic High School in Omaha.

“I think it was a watershed moment because of Him, because when 50,000 people get together to adore Jesus constantly for five days straight … well stuff happens.” 

Perpetual Adoration at St. John the Evangelist Church in downtown Indianapolis “was PACKED night and day,” she said, “not to mention the little private chapel in the hidden recesses of Lucas Oil Stadium populated by sisters, speakers and some priests, where the main monstrance used in the evening was reserved.” 

“I have a sense that I’ll be unpacking the fruits of this Congress for years to come, as will my students,” Fletcher said. “They’ve asked me to take them to the Camino (de Santiago) next year, she said with a laugh. “I told them let me get some sleep first!” 

Students from Catholic high schools in the Omaha metro area and their chaperones are pictured in Indianapolis. COURTESY PHOTO

“I think a lot of the students have had some really powerful encounters with Christ in the Eucharist,” said Leah Schwartz, a teacher at Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School in Bellevue who helped chaperone the high school group.

“I also think the adventure of pilgrimage … has brought the team together, given them a lot of memories, a lot of joy and laughter … and they’re receiving all these graces from the Lord. I’m excited to see what there is to come.”

Conner Thomassen, who will be a senior at Roncalli Catholic, heard about the National Eucharistic Congress a little more than a year ago. He begged, pleaded and convinced Fletcher to form a school pilgrimage group, which expanded to include students from Gross Catholic, V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha and Chesterton Academy of Omaha.

Thomassen, who’s discerning a vocation to the priesthood,  said he wanted to increase his devotion to the Holy Eucharist and be able to share that with others.

He said he liked partaking in the different liturgies at the Congress, including Byzantine and Latin liturgies.

Encountering the thousands of other pilgrims was another bonus. “Seeing all the religious here and just having a city area full of Catholics, that’s kind of cool,” Thomassen said.

Ryan Allen was part of a group from Scotus Central Catholic High in Columbus.

A group from Scotus Central Catholic High School in Columbus gathers for a photo in Indianapolis. COURTESY PHOTO

During a break at the Congress, he could be found passing out prayer pamphlets created by Father Carl Zoucha, associate pastor for the Holy Apostles Parish Family, which includes St. Michael in South Sioux City and 11 other parishes, while Father Zoucha led those gathered around him in prayer.

God gathered together the nearly 60,000 people at the Congress, Allen said, “to be revived, to learn about the Eucharist and to have a second Pentecost, a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

“The whole time I was there, I was just in awe and in bewilderment of ‘this is happening, this is what’s going down.’”

“I think one of the main things  that I got from it – and all the talks led up to it – was that we should live a sacramental life based on the Eucharist,” Allen said. “And that knowing the True Presence is only one part of it. The biggest part is to actually live it out.”

“I came back with more vigor and fervor in wanting to be a disciple and spread the Good News that Jesus is Lord, Jesus loves you, and that He’s given Himself to us in the form of the Eucharist.”

“I was able to see that there’s more than these big encounters, that these little moments are sanctified.”

FAMILIES

Jada and Robbie Miller, of St. Philip Neri-Blessed Sacrament Parish in Omaha, brought their four children to the National Eucharistic Congress, the first in 83 years.

“We thought  it was really important to participate in the Congress in terms of family life and just giving our kids the experience of being something that’s part of our national, worldwide Church,” Jada Miller said.

The Miller family is seen at an outdoor venue at the National Eucharistic Congress. COURTESY PHOTO

“I think everybody left with a sense that God is moving and is on the move in our midst, among us, through us and in us,” Miller said. “That’s our prayer for our family and for our kids, to have experienced that as well. And we really did see fruits from that, our kids praising and worshiping Jesus through the music.”

Their children – Simeon, 9; Rosie, 7; Therese, 6; and Rocco, 3 – listened live to Matt Maher, the same musician they knew from listening to his songs in the car.

They also saw Jonathan Roumie, the actor they had seen portray Jesus in “The Chosen.”

Rosie had a special role in the Eucharistic Procession. She walked with other First Communicants in their First Communion attire before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, spreading flower petals before the Lord.

Her father accompanied her, and it was impactful for both of them, Miller said.

Elsewhere at the Congress, Therese fell and scraped her knee. But two nuns came to her aid.

“Do you need a band-aid?” they asked. One of them said she had felt compelled to grab some extra bandages that day “and maybe this is why.”

“We had a beautiful encounter with the two sisters,” Miller said, “and for them to stop and say a prayer and actually give a band-aid to my daughter when I didn’t have any – just things like that were really beautiful.”

“Just the unity around the Eucharist, nothing can compare to that,” she said.

Alex Engelkamp, also of St. Philip Neri-Blessed Sacrament Parish, went to the Eucharistic Congress with his wife, Hilary, and children Abe, 9; Benedict and Francis, 8; Augustine, 4; and Gianna, 2.

The Englekamps are pictured in a nearly empty Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. COURTESY PHOTO

Engelkamp said he needed to “retrain his brain” after returning home to keep from seeing “nun after nun and monk after monk.”

Among the nearly 60,000 people who participated, 3,866 were clergy, religious and seminarians, said Carrie Kline, a spokesperson for the National Eucharistic Congress

To break it down: 206 bishops or cardinals, 1,176 priests, 634 deacons, 1,236 religious sisters and brothers and 614 seminarians.

While at the Congress, the religious never stopped serving the poor, Engelkamp said, especially as they encountered the homeless in downtown Indianapolis.

“Just to see them as an active part of the Church was so beautiful,” he said.

Engelkamp said his Congress experience, in its beauty and diversity, was like “looking through a kaleidoscope and seeing the Church on the other side.”

From beginning to end, the Congress was focused on the Eucharist, he said, and he’ll need years to unpack all he received.

FRIENDS ON PILGRIMAGE

Friends Susan Moylan, Peg Fleissner, Jo Marsicek and Carol Hoover had a particular moment of grace when they found themselves right next to Benedictine Father Boniface Hicks, a speaker at the Congress, as he walked through the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium with the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance.

Moylan, a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Omaha, called the encounter a “powerful moment of the sun shining through an upper window” at the stadium “and piercing through the monstrance.”

A tender encounter with the Eucharistic Lord is photographed by an archdiocese pilgrim. COURTESY PHOTO

It was “a gift of love that I experienced at this moment of adoration while gazing upon the Blessed Sacrament,” she said.

“This opportunity to be close to Jesus in adoration was special,” Moylan said. “He sees each one’s individual heart, and there were 50,000 hearts He was touching.”

Another powerful Eucharistic moment was during distribution of Holy Communion at a Mass at the stadium, she said. “Jesus was giving Himself to each person. Many hearts were being filled. You could see the movement of each person receiving and returning. I had the image of a large heart in which every person was a small cell moving through the veins of this heart. They were carrying the Blood of Jesus to give life to the world.”

The Congress made Marsicek, of St. Wenceslaus Parish in Omaha, fall more deeply in love with the Eucharistic Lord. “I will make adoration a part of my life,” she said. “Oh, definitely.”

“I really, truly felt, especially at the last Mass, that it was a foretaste of Heaven,” with the entrance of a steady stream of priests and deacons that seemed to take about 25 minutes, Marsicek said.

She wrote down her thoughts at that moment: “The saints coming into Heaven are like the priests, the deacons and all who are continuously pouring in. And those in the stands are those waiting for their loved ones. I just wrote it, and I said the saints are here. I’m coming, family! Please make room for me so that I can join the Communion of Saints.”

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The music at the Congress made Hoover, of St. Patrick Parish in Gretna, think of Heaven.

“The songs practically blew my mind away,” she said. “It was like going a thousand steps up, almost into Heaven.”

Fleissner, also a member of St. Wenceslaus in Omaha, said she enjoyed being part of the large Catholic community at the Congress and seeing in casual settings people like Sister Miriam James Heidland of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, a popular speaker who served as an emcee during the large gatherings at Lucas Oil Stadium.

“We were sitting in a restaurant and Sister Miriam came walking down the street,” Fleissner said. A man at a table next to them flagged down the sister to talk to her, to tell her that listening to her recorded talks had helped him through his depression after his girlfriend died.

Later, talking to Fleisser and others in her group, the man said, “I’d never met her, but I feel as though I know her” because of her inspiration when he was in need.

Mandy Busch, pastoral care minister at St. Patrick Parish in Elkhorn, said Jesus’ love could be felt at the Eucharistic Congress.

“It was palpable and unifying,” said Busch, who attended the Congress with her daughter, Lydia, and Carol Wingler and her daughter, Megan.

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“I felt the unity of 50,000 people loving Jesus,” Busch said. “Jesus was present in the Blessed Sacrament just loving us. And the response of 50,000 people in love with Him was so striking and overwhelming to me.”

“I thought the whole thing highlighted the beauty of the diversity of the Church,” she said, “that we have so many ways to love and praise the Lord within our Church. It’s beautiful.”

In the large crowd, the pilgrims’ love for Jesus and each other was on full display, Lydia said. “It’s something that you normally don’t witness.”

One of the speakers described the atmosphere well, “like something’s about to burst, and something’s about to overflow,” Lydia said.  “That is just how I would describe it. It was so obvious that the Holy Spirit was working in everyone, that it was just going to explode, and it was going to cause such a great impact.”

Busch said she was particularly touched by a talk by Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart about Eucharistic miracles in her life.

Mother Olga told the crowd about how she regularly took the Eucharist to a premature baby in the hospital every day, just setting the pyx in the child’s incubator, trusting in God’s healing presence.

Busch said that once home, she decided to copy Mother Olga’s example and bring the Eucharist in a pyx to a dying friend.

“I put it in her hand when I got to her house, and I said, ‘Jesus is holding your hand right now.’ And we prayed a Divine Mercy Chaplet together.”

“I was so inspired by Mother Olga’s example and her total confidence in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, I was like ‘Gosh, I get to put this into action today.’”

“I think what struck me overall was just the sheer number of people,” Carol Wingler said. “But I just kind of feel like these are my family members I haven’t met yet. … What we have in common is the Lord. And even though there were times that were crowded and busy and standing in lines, you could connect with people, just look at their name tag and start a conversation. It was just kind of peaceful in that way.”

“It just made me feel like this is the Body right here, all of us,” Wingler said. 

“He was so present there. … It leaves me excited for the Church. Honestly, I have this feeling of hope and excitement for what comes next. … I don’t think He brings 60,000 people together to worship and praise without doing something absolutely amazing because of that. So yeah, it’s just exciting to see where it goes from here and what comes next when you send out 60,000 Catholics on mission.”

Her daughter, Megan, agreed.

There was “a feeling throughout the weekend … this is the Upper Room, this is the new Pentecost. It was this grand feeling of this new chapter in the Church.”

“Everybody was saying this is the end of the road, but it’s also the start.”

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