DAY OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION – NOTRE DAME SEMINARY
APRIL 25, 2009 – AL MANSFIELD

A survey conducted in 2008 by CARA, the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate, found that fewer than 6 in 10 US Catholics, 57%, believe that Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist. That’s just a little over half who believe in the Real Presence. Or, looked at from the other side, 43%, or nearly half, believe that the bread and wine are symbols of Jesus, but Jesus Himself is not really present there.

You might be interested to learn that in the Northeast, the survey found that less than half (48%) believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. Whereas, in the South, the survey found that 69% believe in the Real Presence of Christ.

Any way you look at it, that shows a fairly significant lack of faith in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. I remember hearing that some years ago, an Archbishop in the Midwest was so alarmed after he heard similar statistics in his own archdiocese that for the rest of his term as Archbishop he dedicated himself to building faith in the Eucharist among his people.

My own take on this, my personal theory, or opinion, is that if there is a lack of faith in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus it is because there is a lack of faith in the Person of Jesus. That is to say, there is a lack of a personal relationship with the Person of Jesus Christ. For too many Catholics, it seems, there has never been a mature commitment to Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. For too many Catholics, Jesus is just not a living Person in their lives.

A theology professor would often ask his students to list the ten living people they most admired and would want to imitate. The professor noted that the name of Jesus Christ never occurred on anyone’s list. When he would bring this up to his class, the reaction was always the same: the students never thought of Jesus as a living person. This brings to mind what the angel said to the women on Easter Sunday: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Lk. 24:5) Only a living Jesus can be truly present in the Eucharist.

All of us, indeed all Catholics, need a personal faith experience of the Paschal Mystery: that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose for my justification (Rom. 4:25). The key question for all of us is: What does the life, death and resurrection of Jesus have to do with me personally? This personal faith experience, this personal relationship with Christ has been taught and encouraged by virtually all the saints and spiritual writers of the Church down through the centuries.

There was another bishop, this time from Texas, who lamented that too many Catholics have been sacramentalized but never adequately evangelized… “sacramentalized but never evangelized.”

For true evangelization to happen, there is a need, a great need, for the Holy Spirit. Before Vatican II Pope John XXIII prayed and had the whole Church pray: “O Divine Spirit, renew your wonders in this our day as by a new Pentecost.” Pope Paul VI said, “If anyone truly loves the Church he must foster in her an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.”  Pope John Paul II said repeatedly that there would be a “New Springtime” for Christianity if people were docile to the Holy Spirit.  Pope Benedict XVI said,

“Christ’s entire mission is summed up in this: to baptize us in the Holy Spirit.”

So, the Church needs the Holy Spirit; the world needs the Holy Spirit; all of us need the Holy Spirit.

If I may, I would like to say a word to priests and future priests, and really to all who serve in the Church. The question is, “What can you do, what can we do, how can all of us work for greater appreciation of the Eucharist? The answer, I would suggest to you, is found in preaching and teaching. In Romans 10:17, St. Paul tells us: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of Christ.”

In the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, given to us by John Paul II, the third Luminous mystery is: “The preaching of the gospel of the kingdom of God.”  Preaching was obviously a very important part of the ministry of Jesus, and so it should be for us.  There is a desperate need, a crying need, to preach the word of God and to challenge Catholics to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior…to challenge Catholics to make the Paschal Mystery their own.

As St. Paul said to Timothy: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim 4:1-5).

In order to preach effectively, we need the Holy Spirit. Pope Paul VI once asked, “What is the greatest need of the Church?” His answer was short and sweet: “The Holy Spirit.” We need a constant cry from our hearts, “Come Holy Spirit!” But not just on the Church universal but upon each and every member of the Church. We each need our personal epiclesis, our personal Pentecost.

Listen to the words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel about asking for the Holy Spirit:

“And I tell you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For every one  who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Lk 11:9-13).

I would like to close these reflections with a passage from the prophet Amos (8: 11-12) that I heard Fr. Thomas Dubay, SM, preach on many times in this chapel at Notre Dame Seminary:

“Yes, days are coming says the Lord God,
When I will send a famine upon the land:
Not a famine of bread, or thirst for water,
but for hearing the word of the Lord.
Then shall they wander from sea to sea
and rove from north to the east
in search of the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.”

There are perhaps many who would say that we live in such a time today. Let us resolve that when we open our mouths in the name of the Lord,  that those who seek to hear the word of the Lord will in fact find it. And let us pray constantly and insistently to the Holy Spirit that we will find, hear, believe, and obey the word of the Lord, especially when He says…”This is my Body; This is my Blood.” Amen.