Restoring belief in Christ's presence

Astounded to learn that many Catholics no longer believe in a teaching that is the source and summit of their faith, the bishops are planning a three-year Eucharistic Revival Project, “My Flesh for the Life of the World.” Starting early next year, the ambitious effort will reach Catholics at both the parish and diocesan levels, culminating in a national Eucharistic celebration in 2024 in Indianapolis.

Spearheading the project as chairman of the bishops’ committee on evangelization and catechesis is Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who will speak at the Legatus Summit East in Amelia Island, FL, Jan. 27-29. Bishop Cozzens, who was to be installed Dec. 6 as bishop of Crookston, MN, said the project was proposed by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron after 2019 Pew Research findings showed 69 percent of Catholics believe that what they receive in Holy Communion is only a symbol of Christ’s body and blood.

Although Bishop Barron’s initial idea was to base the Eucharistic revival on the bishops’ V National Encuentro to raise up new Latino leaders, it soon grew into something that will extend beyond leaders, Bishop Cozzens said. “This was a revival we wanted to affect larger and larger amounts 

of people.” It is now being modeled on the movement of Eucharistic congresses, which began in 1881. The last such congress in the U.S. was in 1976 in Philadelphia, where Karol Wojtyla, who would become Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta were among the speakers. “Some bishops were there as teenagers and have talked about the importance this had in their lives,” Bishop Cozzens said.

In addition to a national congress, the Eucharistic Revival Project will incorporate a catechetical evangelistic effort that will reach out to Catholics at every level, starting with dioceses and moving into parishes and families.

Reverence for Eucharist as a unifier

“The bishops love the Eucharist,” Bishop Cozzens said, adding that they see the project as an opportunity to strengthen and bring the Church together around reverence for the sacrament.

How the Catholic Church got to a place where so many of its members do not embrace the core teaching of the real presence is likely due to many factors, Bishop Cozzens said. Among these is a general secularization of society that includes the moral struggles of the culture and the divorce between faith and reason promoted in a materialistic view of the world. In such a milieu, Bishop Cozzens said, people may lack understanding about who God is, why there is a need to worship Him and what difference God makes in someone’s life. “Someone who is not even looking for God is not going to discover Him in the Eucharist.”

Similarly, he continued, those with a materialistic worldview think reality is only what can be seen and touched. “You might even call it a scientistic world view. There is no transcendent reality and transcendent reality is kind of a remnant of the past.”

Such cultural influences combined with poor catechesis and a trend toward lack of reverence for the Eucharist have brought the Church to this state, Bishop Cozzens said. “All of this has made it difficult for people to believe in the Eucharist if they’ve not been brought up in a family that reverences that and don’t have the opportunity to encounter Christ in the Eucharist.”

Yet another factor, he said, is the culture’s attitude toward Sunday as just another day of the week. “We’ve lost the sense that our lives belong to God – and especially on the Lord’s Day . . . that whole understanding of the need to worship Him and how that orders my life rightly and allows me to experience joy. Keeping the sabbath is part of my relationship with God. If I don’t do it, my life becomes ordered to the things of this world.”

Understanding but not believing

Bishop Cozzens said one of the most disturbing things about the 2019 Pew Research findings on Catholics and the Eucharist was that some respondents said they understood the teaching on the real presence but did not believe it. To strengthen belief in the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ, the bishops’ catechetical evangelistic effort will concentrate on five strategic pillars:

• Preaching about and experiences of Eucharistic devotion.
• The doctrine of the real presence in Church teaching, worship, and lives of service.
• Partnering with movements, apostolates, educational institutions, and parishes.
• Reaching parish small groups and families.
• Learning from intercultural Eucharistic traditions.

In addition to speaking to people’s intellects through good catechesis, Bishop Cozzens said, “We also have to provide the right kind of experiences where we can appeal to the heart and imagination about what it means that Jesus wants to remain with us and wants to be so close to us that he becomes our food.”

Even in its incipient stages, the Eucharistic Revival Project has met with widespread enthusiasm, drawing support from the Knights of Columbus, Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), and Legatus. Bishop Cozzens said this is an indication not only of love for the Eucharist among those who believe, but the realization of the need to revive everyone’s faith in it. “When we have this incredible gift, every now and then we need to remind ourselves of what it is. It is such a great mystery that we can always draw more fruit from it.”

Bishop Cozzens’ own deep love for Jesus in the Eucharist is intimately tied to his priestly vocation, but he said what he experiences at the altar applies to everyone.

Living each day in self-giving

“Especially for the priest, but for every person who comes to the Eucharist, we’re meant to learn how to shape and form our hearts and minds according to the Eucharistic self-gift of Jesus.

When I say those words, ‘This is my body, which will be given up for you,’ I know this is my body too and I’m called every day to live in imitation of Jesus’ self-gift, which is what every person is supposed to say when coming to Communion.”

However, Bishop Cozzens said, to fully understand the mystery of Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist requires more than attending Mass. “We need other times,” he said. For his own part, he makes a holy hour of adoration each day before the Blessed Sacrament, finding that he can more clearly engage in intimate dialogue with Christ there.

“His Eucharistic presence allows that face-to- face encounter that has sometimes unknown and even unseen effects on us. By spending time in His presence, He is shaping and forming my heart in ways I don’t even know because I’m giving Him permission to shape and form me in the silence, which is meant to lead to the desire to receive more and more. There’s something that happens in the silence that’s extended that can’t fully happen at Mass.”

It is such an experience that awaits Catholics who embrace the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and one the Eucharistic Revival Project is intended to ignite. “We have a generation that was baptized Catholic and maybe even received their First Communion and they don’t believe in Jesus in the real presence in the Eucharist,” Bishop Cozzens said.“...Wehavealotofwork todo.Weneedtostartafirein those who do believe so that that fire spreads.” 

JUDY ROBERTS is a Legatus magazine staff writer.