Eucharistic Congress

This is going to be a week of faith building in the Diocese of Phoenix.  Today, at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, begins a  Eucharistic Congress – a week devoted to the Holy Eucharist.  In The Eucharist: Source and summit of the faith, our Cathedral Rector, Very Rev. Fr. John Lankeit talks about the impact both in our parish, and in his personal spiritual life, of Eucharistic Adoration.

Fr. John Lankeit, rector of the cathedral, said within the first three weeks of the establishment of perpetual adoration, parishioners told him of the spiritual fruits already being harvested.

“One woman told me that just by spending three holy hours — one hour a week, three different times — she said, ‘I am more patient with my children, I have more peace,’ and she attributed it directly to her holy hour,” Fr. Lankeit said.

He told another parishioner at Ss. Simon and Jude that he thought perpetual adoration would revolutionize the parish. “No, Father,” the woman told him. “It already has.”

So how important is spending time before the Eucharist in adoration?

Fr. Lankeit believes it is crucial. He said that it’s one thing to read about Christ or to pray, but it’s another thing to actually encounter Him. The cathedral’s rector spends one holy hour each day in adoration of the Eucharist.

“My priesthood would collapse without it,” Fr. Lankeit said of daily adoration. “My priesthood is me standing in the Person of Christ and if I don’t know Him intimately and allow myself to be known intimately by Him in His Real Presence, then priesthood is social work.”

Another parishioner and mother of six young children, Sharon Phelan, says,

The hour she and her husband Mike spend before the Blessed Sacrament is the highlight of her week.

“The busier life gets, the more I desire stillness and peace. My heart craves this time each week,” Sharon said. “It is indescribable the quiet, stillness and peace I feel. Just being with Jesus, next to my husband who is Christ to me in my home… is beautiful.”

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With those thoughts in mind, we will be devoting a great deal of time to church activities this week.

• Tonight: 6:30 Mass, followed by keynote address by Sr. John Mary Corbett, O.P. Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

• Tomorrow: 6:30 Mass, followed by a special Teen Talk for a combined junior high and high school youth group with Rev. Fr. John Parks, while the keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Edward Sri,
  Professor at Augustine Institute, Author, Speaker and Co-founder of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students).

• Wednesday: 6:30 Mass, followed by keynote by Rev. Fr. Mark Baron, MIC, Superior of the House of Formation in Washington DC, Minister to the Pentagon, Spiritual Director and Speaker.

• Thursday and Friday: Laurent and I get to sing for the Mass, so that means 5:30 call time.  Keynote speakers will be Rev. Fr. Mark Baron on Thursday, and our own Very Rev. Fr. John Lankeit, Rector of Ss. Simon & Jude Cathedral of Phoenix.

Besides our full schedule with church, Laurent has two rehearsals this week for her debut vocal recital next Sunday, and this week theater class was bumped to 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday so that will give us a busier morning but an easier afternoon.

And somewhere in there I would like to spend some time in adoration – in a week like this, it is especially important to carve out that quiet time!