Welcome Back, One last time. On July 21st, 2024, The 10th National Eucharist closed out with one final Revival Session with Keynotes from Chris Stefanik and Mother Adella Galindo, then a closing liturgy. A word about the closing liturgy before we jump into the last two Revival Keynotes. It was so amazing to see the fianl procession of priest into Lucas Oil Stadium. I loved that the Papal Delegate Luis Cardinal Tagle began his Homily by saying different languages including Chinese, Vietnamese, and Swahili. Now on to the last revival session.
The penultimate Revival Speaker Chris Stefanik. He is the founder of Real lIfe Catholic and is a husband and father (fun fact one of his daughters sitting next at my graduation from Franciscan). The first thing that resonated with me was that he asked a rhetorical question and then answered it. This rhetorical question, and then subsequent answeer went like this "What is your net worth? The Body of Christ". It reminded me that the way Catholics should not define their worth the way does. Some ways in which the world says to define oneself include education level or amount of money you. make (you know your net worth). But our worth comes from the fact that Christ died for us and gave us his body for our earthly pilgrimage to heaven. Stefanik also said "Your savior's name is not Don and it's not Joe {give him grace the news the Biden had dropped out had not dropped when he wrote this speech or was giving it] it's Jesus". This was such a good reminder, especially during an election year, that now politician will ever "save" us. These individuals will always be flawed. Yes, any politician may seem to have the answers or we may like their policies, but what sounds good on paper may not be good in reality (just look to socialism and communism). Not to mention when we act like a politician can save us, it always seems to be from some temporal ill such as high taxes or the latest societal phobia Jesus is our savior, both temporally and eternally. He may choose to work through a politician, but it should never be assumed it is the one we like, or as often happens, is the lesser of two evils. Finally, after chastising the crow for "praying too small" he reminded it that "two thirds of God's name is Go". This is a great call to be missionaries, to not keep our faith private. One thing the world get abysmally wrong (yes, mom I know a big word, so scary) is that faith is only supposed to be a private matter. If religions is supposed to be simply a private matter, than what is the point of having it. Faith or religion is supposed to be shared, as to reveal the truth, and while each religion may contain some truth, Catholicism has the fullness of the truth. If one keeps the truth hidden or private in the court room, they can get charged with perjury. So if temporal truth is so highly valued, why should eternal truths of faith not be just as highly valued if not more highly valued? Sorry, you'll have to contemplate that question at another time. we need to get to the Revival speaker.
The closing speaker for the Revival Session of the Congress was Mother Adela Galindo, the founder of the Servants of the. Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a group of religious sisters, brothers, priests, and lay persons. She was a great closer for the Congress' Revival sessions. She first reminded the crowd that "love always chooses to be present". Again, love is not merely an emotion as the world loves to make it appear but an action. If it weren't active, then why would one how do you show love? yes, emotions can be shown, and love certainly has an emotional aspect, but it's primary aspect is that of action. One only has the feelings associated with love only after another has chosen to love. Mary chose to love Elizabeth by "going out in haste" to help Elizabeth during the last trimester of pregnancy, even though Mary had just miraculously conceived Jesus and was thus at the beginning of her own pregnancy, though it was certainly different from other pregnancies, not only because Mary carried God in her very self, but because she was sinless, so perhaps if there are any pregnancy related trials which are related to the effects of sin she would not have experienced those. She then exhorted the crowd to "use your rosary". Well, that quite thoroughly made me feel called out as I've been struggling to remember to say a daily rosary recently. It makes me remember that the rosary is indeed a weapon. It makes me recall the story of the Bishop in Nigeria during the days of Boko Haram, received a vision whilst praying the rosary, in which Jesus handed him a sword, which as soon as it reached his hands turned into a rosary. This Bishop would go on to promote the rosary and Boko Haram would surrender their weapons and turn themselves in in 2017 (details taken from theDivineMercy.org) Lastly she told the crowd "Our Lady needs you to cry out to the world". What a beautiful message. Mary, Our Lady needing us to transform the world. She certainly used many saints to do so, many of which she appeared to. Ons such saint was the modern martyr, St. Maximillian Kolbe, whom Mother Adela did mention earlier in her talk, who sacrificed himself for a father who was sentenced to die in Auschwitz during World War II. St. Maximillian Kolbe, was if anything a Marian saint, he founded the Militia Immaculata, in part to combat Freemasonry (one of the groups Catholics are prohibited from joining. If Mary used him, she can certainly use any one of us to spread the good news of the Gospel of her son, in general, but most of the good news of Gospel of her son's true presence of the Holy Eucharist,
And with that our almost daily serial has come to an end. To anyone who attended this gathering, I hope it changed you in some way, To those who could not attend, I hope this series has given you some idea of what it was like. I must give one caveat about this series as a whole, you might see this as a very positive reflection of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress and largely, my experience was positive, but it's only my experience and I hope anyone who did not have an experience like mine is able, to at least find some joy from the event even if it wasn't an overall pleasnt experience. Please come back soon and join me on the merry journey of my ife.
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