Diocese starts Eucharistic Revival planning

Friday, Apr. 29, 2022

SALT LAKE CITY — On June 19, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the “three-year grassroots revival of devotion and belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist” called for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will begin. The bishops “believe that God wants to see a movement of Catholics across the United States healed, converted, formed and unified by an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist – and sent out in mission ‘for the life of the world,’” states the National Eucharistic Revival website.

The effort will be highlighted by a National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024, when about 100,000 Catholics are expected to “join together in Indianapolis for a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage toward the ‘source and summit’ of our Catholic faith,” the website states, referring to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’s description of the Eucharistic sacrifice as “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life.” (Lumen Gentium 11)

The first year of this Eucharistic Revival is dedicated to events at the diocesan level. The second year will be devoted to the parish level, and the months from July 17, 2024 to Pentecost 2025 will be the “Year of Going Out on Mission.”

In the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Bishop Oscar A. Solis will preside at a liturgy rolling out the effort on June 19, the Feast of Corpus Christi. 

The Eucharist “is what we already do; it’s who we are – the Church as Eucharist in the JPII sense,” acknowledged Father Christopher Gray, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, who is spearheading the diocesan Eucharistic Revival. “But it’s also an opportunity to focus on this and be united as a local Church … to love the Eucharist.”

Focusing on the Eucharist will give Catholics the chance to understand how “the faithful are able to allow the faith to change us,” Fr. Gray said. “Ultimately, our faith is meaningful insofar as we are letting Christ conform us, and one of the ways in which that happens in a very important, primary, sacramental way is the Eucharist, received with great frequency – weekly, for example – and a life that is to be more and more coherent with it.”

Or, as the third Eucharistic prayer states, “until Christ is formed in you,” Fr. Gray added. 

The prayer references Galatians 4:19, “Until Christ is formed in you,” which is rendered in the prayer as “may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”

Among the diocesan initiatives will be four-minute liturgical reflections on the Eucharist prepared by the diocesan Office of Worship and read at weekend Masses. These reflections, which will begin in the fall, also will be published in the pages of this newspaper and posted on the diocesan website.

Similar to the national effort, the diocesan effort will culminate in a diocesan-wide celebration on July 9, 2023 at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy. All Catholics in the diocese are encouraged to attend this rally in person, but it also will be livestreamed. Transportation to the event will be provided from churches throughout the diocese.

The focus of the rally will be a Mass. However, the daylong event will include devotions such as music provided by various groups from throughout the diocese, and speakers brought in for the event. 

After the rally, local parishes will be encouraged to deepen their Eucharistic life with services such as Eucharistic adoration or prayer nights, or charitable acts that can be done for the sake of Eucharistic revival. 

“Insofar as we are a Eucharistic people – and that is a universal thing – there are different ways we can manifest this,” Fr. Gray said. “In my understanding of the Eucharist, material charity is absolutely important; it is inseparable.”

An emphasis on the Eucharist can help Catholics rediscover and make alive again their faith, not just at the parish but also in the diocese, at home, in their hearts, “as the bishop has mentioned many times in exiting the pandemic,” Fr. Gray said.