I’m hungry.
When my kids used to say those words, I’d quickly think of some way to satisfy their hunger, whether it was time for a meal or maybe just a snack. Aren’t we all, typically, quick to find solution when our stomachs growl? When we have a feeling of emptiness or lack of energy?
Hunger. That word permeated the National Eucharistic Congress talks and has stuck in my mind and soul since attending the Congress. The word has started to take on a whole new depth of meaning, really, because as Msgr. Shea suggested in one of his talks, we are living in a land of famine! We often are not being nourished and satisfied because we look for those things in all the wrong places. We are a hungry, wandering people, much like our ancestors in the desert. (Check out Msgr. Shea’s talk on YouTube…”Monsignor James Shea’s Full Speech at the National Eucharistic Congress,” July 18th, 2024.)
Now, for all intents and purposes, maybe many of us here at Mass don’t quite fit that category of “hungry and wandering.” We come to the Lord’s table weekly (and some even more frequently)…but yet…are we truly open (hungry) for all that the Lord wants to give, how he wants to nourish us, and what he wants to nourish us for?
The “hunger” referenced time and again at the Congress, of course, was not a physical hunger but a spiritual one, particularly a hunger for our Lord in the Eucharist. While it can be good to be spiritually hungry, it’s not so good to be spiritually famished. And many are famished…they’ve perhaps turned from the Lord’s table or come to it infrequently or maybe have never been invited.
Yet it is our Eucharistic Lord who truly fills us in all the ways we desire and need, but we often do not fully realize in this gift of the Bread of Life, our True Drink and True Food. So, the cry and mantra at the Congress was clear: “Hunger!” A verb, a command, an invitation…not a noun. “Hunger for Me and hunger for My people,” invited the Lord during those five days in Indianapolis, just as he does every day and has since the Last Supper, and from all time.
Before this Congress, I knew I was hungry for the Lord and he was hungry for me, but I didn’t know how much! And much more, I feel more fully how he hungers for me to help one who is also hungry. With that, the Eucharistic Revival encourages us to “WALK WITH ONE.”
Walk With One
Check out the Eucharistic Revival website at https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/walk-with-one. It exhorts, “There is someone in your life right now whom Jesus longs to call to himself. He wants to spark a relationship with them and bless them with his sacraments. In this Year of Mission, Catholics across the U.S. are saying ‘yes’ to a special form of heart-to-heart accompaniment called the Walk With One initiative. This is your opportunity to be God’s instrument in the life of another person.”
This initiative can be summarized with 4 Key Steps:
- Identify someone in a spirit of humility
- Intercede for that person in communion with the Holy Spirit
- Connect in Eucharistic friendship
- Invite that person on a path most suitable for him or her
St. Vincent de Paul
We have yet another opportunity to walk with others in their hunger! Our St. Vincent de Paul Conference here at St. John is looking for more members to help meet the growing needs of those who are hungry in the St. John neighborhood. Granted, this work is to help those who are physically hungry, but it is in serving this need that we have the opportunity to learn more about the “client’s” spiritual hungers and show the Lord’s love. Please let us know if you would like to help in this way or if you have any questions.
Eucharistic Adoration
Finally, as Fr. Chas invited last week, check out our Eucharistic Adoration Chapel! Go to pray for an hour, sign up as a sub, or commit to an hour weekly. (Just so you know, we list the hours we need coverage for in the bulletin, but if none of those work for you, you are able to be a second adorer at an hour that is already covered. Just call our office to find out more.) The Adoration Chapel is the perfect place to fall in love more fully with our Eucharistic Lord and to more fully discern his plan for your life as a missionary disciple.
Monsignor Shea asked us to consider, “Will I seek the food that will satisfy me for all eternity?” And at the closing Congress Mass, Cardinal Tagle, who serves the Holy See as the pro-prefect of the Section for the First Evangelization and New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization, had this encouragement for all of us, “Commit yourself to walking with one person,” he said. “Commit yourself to becoming a Eucharistic missionary, someone who lives deeply a Eucharistic life, and having received that gift, allows themselves to be given as a gift.”
So, let’s eat and let’s walk as those who are called on Eucharistic Mission!