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Bishop Braxton speaks on the eucharist and the family at congress

Addressing the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City, Canada on June 16, 2008, Bishop Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Ill., said, “We must recognize the Eucharist as a call to communion, a call to community. The Eucharist has the power to nurture families and to change communities. Catholic families whose lives are focused on the Eucharistic liturgy open themselves up in a special way to the effective presence of Christ in their lives.”

The bishop was one of many bishops and theologians from around the world who spoke at this historic gathering.

Thousands of Catholics gathered from June 15 to June 22 from around the world to celebrate their Catholic faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist at Quebec’s Expo-Cité (renamed Eucharistic City for the occasion).

In 2004 Pope John Paul II selected Quebec because 2008 is the anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, the first Catholic Diocese north of Mexico.

The first International Eucharistic Congress was held in Lille, France in 1881. The 48th International Eucharistic Congress was in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2004.

Developing the topic of the relationship between the Eucharist and the family, the bishop continued, “The Eucharist contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, because it contains Christ Himself. This means our love for Christ Present in the Eucharist cannot end with our individual personal expression of faith during the consecration of the Mass. Nor can it be restricted to our private adoration of Christ in the tabernacle during a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. In the Eucharist we are called as individuals and as families into spiritual contact with the risen Lord. This dynamic spiritual intimacy with Christ necessarily moves us deeper into the Scriptures, the Church, the life of prayer, the teachings of the magisterium, the example of the saints, and the desire to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our personal lives. The Eucharist calls each of us and all families to conversion.

“This has profound implication. If we are truly united with Christ and His Church in the Eucharist, we will be confronted deep within our being and challenged not to imitate the secular culture’s embrace and acceptance of actions and attitudes which directly or indirectly undermine the family. A deep Eucharistic understanding of the nature and meaning of marriage helps us to see the moral harm done to family life by young people engaging in sexual activity before they are married, widespread Catholic divorce and remarriage, Catholic moral indifference to abortion, same sex ‘marriage,’ embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. A Eucharistic awareness of our unity with the entire human family will also call us to ponder our positions on challenging questions such as war, capital punishment, the pollution of our environment, and our participation in a materialistic culture in the face of the poverty in which most of the world’s population lives. While many Catholic people are aware of these issues, they often think of them as ‘social issues’ with no direct connection to their devotion to Christ’s Eucharistic Presence.

“Every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection and a participation in the Last Supper, during which the Lord Jesus gave us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink. Christ reminds us at each Eucharist that He is the living Bread that has come down from heaven. If we eat this Bread we will have Life everlasting. The Mass is the great family meal of the Church. But there is a great difference between this family meal and the one we have at home with our relatives. When we eat a meal at home the food that we eat becomes us. It becomes a part of our physical bodies.

“When we consume the Body and Blood of Christ, Bread that breathes and Wine that bleeds, this heavenly food does not become us. We become what we eat! We become Christ. Each member of our family who feeds on the Bread from heaven becomes Christ; we become members of His Mystical Body. This is why it is inadequate to think of the Eucharist in exclusively individualistic terms. It is not simply a matter of Jesus and me. It is Jesus and us. The Eucharist calls us to community, to family-hood. The Eucharist helps us to build physical, emotional, psychological, moral, intellectual, and spiritual intimacy in the family.”

The bishop concluded his address noting that a number of dioceses have recently held local Eucharistic congresses with a focus on families praying in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This, in turn, has radiated into parish adoration chapels. A special focus of these chapels has been prayer for vocations to the priesthood, the diaconate, and the religious life. There are growing indications that these efforts have born fruit. He urged the participants to begin the practice in their families, parishes, and dioceses.