CV NEWS FEED // The Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh has written a letter about how the graces from the National Eucharistic Congress will renew the United States and the whole world.
On June 22, Bishop William J. Waltersheid published a letter on the diocesan website the day after he returned from the National Eucharistic Congress. In reflecting on the fruits of the event, he said that he participated in a “life-changing experience for myself personally and for the Catholic Church in the United States.”
Bishop Walltersheid said that the graces pouring forth from the Eucharistic Heart of Our Lord “flowed out… for the entire country and, if [I] do dare say, for the entire world.”
The Bishop outlined three instances of encounter with Our Lord: “His Sacrifice, His Presence, His Body and Blood received,” followed by a call to go forth and evangelize.
He outlined how attending Mass gave participants a chance to encounter Christ’s sacrifice, as “Christ’s Sacrifice made present on the altar is the dynamic outpouring of the love and mercy of the Father.” In the Sacrifice of the Mass, he continued, participants received “grace upon grace from the Paschal Mystery of the Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection.”
Next, attendees encountered Christ’s presence in Eucharistic Adoration at St. John’s Parish across the street from the Indiana Convention Center. The church was filled “at all times,” Bishop Waltersheid said. “At [Christ’s] feet we received the grace that strengthened our baptismal call to love Him above all else, to love one another as He taught us, and to go out and share His saving love with others in service and joy.”
Third, participants encountered the Lord through receiving Him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. “When we receive [Christ] in Holy Communion, we are more and more united to Him. We are bound to Him as the Head in His Mystical Body the Church and then to one another as members of that Body.”
After these encounters with Our Lord, participants were called “to go out and to share the tremendous gift of the Eucharistic Jesus with others by evangelizing them and serving them.”
The bishop finished his letter with an exhortation: “So, my dear friends, get ready. The graces of the Congress will continue as the Eucharistic Revival touches the hearts of many in the Church and in the world.”
