Graces and Gratitude in the Presence of the King: Part 3

A Reflection on Day 2 of the 10 National Eucharistic Congress:

“The graces are being poured down like rivers of liquid sunlight.”

– A Sister of Charity (SCMC)

We began the day with praying morning prayer, which is normal for us-but being joined by at least a hundred more voices in harmony was awesome. As morning prayer ended, we had to leave Jesus, present upon the altar in the monstrance, only to join Him again. We made our way out of the church and down the street to Lucas Oil Stadium, which will forever hold a warm place in our hearts, for Holy Mass with Cardinal Dolan of New York and 10K other brothers and sisters in Christ! As Mass began, the procession of priests felt like it lasted a good six months and we kept looking for the crozier of the Cardinal so we would know it was the end. Many of our Sisters were able to serve as part of the volunteer Communion ushers and help bring people to Jesus- what a wonderful gift that was!

There were a number of tracks for the morning impact sessions and I went to the one entitled “Renewal.’ Cardinal DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas, shared a number of points from Patristics, beginning with the opening dialogue to the liturgy of the Eucharist. We chanted, “we lift them up to the Lord” and heard how this conversation was old even in the days of St Basil the Great.

I was helping with street evangelization that day which, as someone said, was mostly preaching to the choir. CMWR was in charge of the Adoration church/chapel and in addition to keeping Jesus company, we assisted people in coming to Him. At one point, A mom with three young ones came up and asked if it was all right if they went in. I said, “yes, Jesus is soooo looking forward to seeing you!” They broke out into grins and headed in to be with Jesus.

We also had an unusual dilemma. Instead of not having enough adorers we didn’t have enough places to put them. We were literally tripping on people lining the aisles, sitting or kneeling in the front, all over-hundreds packed into the Church to spend time with Our Lord for hours! What a problem to have! This was definitely a revival!

Written by: A Sister of Charity (SCMC)