During the week, every catechesis, testimony and homily explained a different aspect of the Eucharist, underlining that true love of God and Eucharistic adoration must necessarily result in love of neighbour and social commitment. For the occasion, Quebec City’s Pepsi Coliseum (an ice hockey arena) became a huge church, where the Holy Mass was celebrated each day before 12,000 people. The Congress began on Sunday, June 15, with the opening Mass concelebrated by 40 cardinals and 106 bishops, the main celebrant being Jozef Cardinal Tomko, the papal representative and president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Eucharistic Congresses.
For
a week, Quebec City’s hockey arena The "cleansing" of Quebec This week-long Congress ended with the outdoor Mass on historic Plains of Abraham, as over 60,000 faithful gathered in pouring rain and thunder for the celebration of the Eucharist, also led by Cardinal Tomko, accompanied this time by more than 30 Cardinals, 200 bishops and over 1000 priests. Pope Benedict XVI delivered the homily on large video screens live via satellite from the Vatican.
Sunday,
June 22: rain pours on the altar, As reported by Jenna Murphy of LifeSiteNews.com, "by the time the lengthy procession had ended and the Mass had begun, the skies had completely clouded over. At the very moment in the Mass when Catholics believe the bread and wine are ‘transubstantiated’ into the body and blood of Christ, the skies opened up and torrential rains drenched the crowd. During the Eucharistic prayer, a clap of thunder evoked from the massive congregation an awareness of the supernatural as all stood (and some knelt) open-mouthed in the deluge. "After communion, Cardinal Tomko made his first unscripted comment of the Congress when he qualified the rain as ‘rain of grace’. This comment was seconded by Quebec’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who called it a ‘flood of Divine Goodness’ — a line that accompanied the front page spread in the Monday edition of Le Soleil, Quebec City’s local paper." It was mentioned in the crowds that it was the cleansing of Quebec, which badly needed this spiritual boost. (In fact it rained daily during the whole week.) Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, the director of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network (and former organizer of the 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto) explains, as reported by zenit.org (July 1, 2008) : "The real problem in Quebec has been the spiritual void created by a religious and cultural rupture, a significant loss of memory, bringing in its wake a family crisis and an educational crisis, leaving citizens disoriented, unmotivated and destabilized. "No one has tackled this indifference over the past few years more courageously, eloquently and publicly than Cardinal Marc Ouellet. If the Eucharist is gift of God for the life of the world, then Cardinal Marc Ouellet has truly been a gift of God for the life of the Church in Canada, and especially in Quebec. "Several times during the magnificent week of the International Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Ouellet stated emphatically that the congress marked a ‘turning point.’ At the lively Saturday evening prayer vigil with his devoted young people, the cardinal said the he felt as if he had been ‘raised from the dead’." Other significant events mentioned by Father Rosica were the 5-kilometer (3-mile) procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of Quebec City on Thursday evening, June 19, with 25,000 participants, and the ordination of twelve priests on Friday evening: "In a part of Canada and North America that has had few priestly vocations over the past decades, the ordination of 12 young men — eight of whom were from the new community "Famille Marie Jeunesse" — before a crowd of nearly 12,000 people elicited extraordinary emotion, joy, eruptions of applause, gratitude and abundant tears from those in attendance."
The eight new priests with their Bishop The Eucharist, gift of God The theme of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress was "The Eucharist, gift of God for the life of the world." As a matter of fact, Quebec City was founded four hundred years ago in 1608 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain, who came on a vessel named Don de Dieu (gift of God). The influence of this vessel’s name is reflected in the coat of arms and motto of Quebec City: "Don de Dieu, feray valoir (I shall put God’s gift to good use)".
Here are excerpts from Cardinal Tomko’s homily on Sunday, June 15: "The Eucharist is a gift of God. Not as an object, as the other gifts of God, but a very special one, because it is the gift of God himself. The Eucharist is Christ himself, a Person with His divine and human nature, given to us. It is the body and blood of the Risen Christ present with us under the sacramental signs of bread and wine. "Before leaving this world, Jesus wanted to leave to his Church and to all of humanity the gift of his Presence. He has chosen the form of bread and wine. Since the beginning of his public life, in Capernaum, He has promised the bread of life: ‘The bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world’ (Jn 6, 51). On the eve of His passion, in the Cenacle he took the bread and solemnly declared: ‘This is my body given up for you’. And He said over the wine: ‘Drink from it, all of you, this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins’. He has accomplished only a few hours in advance of, and in a bloodless, sacramental manner, the sacrifice offered in bloody way on the Cross at Calvary. Jesus therefore instituted the Eucharist as His redemptive sacrifice. The Eucharist is a sacramental form of the sacrifice of Jesus on Cross, Cenacle and Calvary are just one sacrifice ‘for the life of the world’. "This sacrifice happened only once, but Jesus wanted to apply and to perpetuate it through the centuries. Therefore He gave a commandment to His apostles: ‘Do this in memory of me’. It is a memorial and a command: not only to remember Him with speeches and words, but to do what He has done. From that time, the priests of his Church accomplish this sublime command doing the same action and pronouncing the same words. Through two thousand years the same words of Jesus consecrating the bread and wine resounds in each church. As Saint Paul testifies about the church of Corinth: ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes’ (1Cor 11, 26). "In each celebration of the Mass, Jesus Christ Himself is present with us in the situation of sacrifice as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of our world, of our community: our sins. When the priest proclaims after the consecration: ‘This is the mystery of faith’, the people profess their faith in Christ’s sacrifice that is renewed at the altar: ‘We proclaim your death, Lord!’ "It is not a show, not a pure commemoration or remembrance, it is sacramental representation of this salvific event, a persevering memorial bringing its fruits to the faithful. The Sunday Mass is such a memorial. If we understand in depth the meaning of our weekly Eucharist, we will revise our frequentation to it. It will become clear for us why the martyrs of Abitine in Northern Africa declared to the pagan judge: ‘We cannot live without the (Sunday) Eucharist’ (‘Sine Dominico non possumus vivere’) and why they offered their lives for this conviction.
"The Holy Mass, possibly with the Holy Communion, and the adoration of our Lord present among us in the Eucharist – are the main form of our response to such a great Love of God." During the homily, Cardinal Tomko presented Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet with a large, ornate gold crosier as a gift from Pope Benedict. When Cardinal Ouellet was consecrated a Bishop by Pope John Paul II in Rome in 2001 as secretary of the Pontifical Congregation for promoting Christian Unity, he was not in charge of any diocese, so he did not receive any pastoral staff. When he was appointed archbishop of Quebec City in 2003, nobody thought about giving him one; this has been made up for now by the Pope. During the presentation of the gifts for the Mass on June 15, Msgr. Hermann Giguere, Superior of Quebec City’s Seminary, presented the chalice given by French king Louis XVI to the first bishop of Quebec City, François de Laval (who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980). This chalice was used by Cardinal Tomko for the celebration.
Let
us seek to know On Monday, June 16, the Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the archbishop of Quebec City, who mentioned the current food crisis in his homily: "Beloved brothers and sisters, we celebrate now the memorial of the offering of the love of Jesus and of His Passover. The Lord comes to meet us, He calls us and places us in the heart of His offering of love for the salvation of the world. By giving ourselves over with Him, in love, let us ask to be ourselves sources of love for the world. ‘The one who believes in Me, says Jesus, from his side will flow living waters’ (John 7:38). May the Holy Spirit increase our faith and open our hearts to the gift of God who wants to flow in us and reach, through us, the life of the whole world. Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta carried painfully in her heart the distress of the poor and the thirst of love of the Heart of Jesus, in one single mystery. May we also partake in the gift of God who wishes to satisfy all the poor!
Opposite picture: Cardinal Ouellet giving his homily on June 16. Sitting on left: Cardinal Bernard Agre, former archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, who spent the whole month of June (except for one week in Quebec City for the Eucharistic Congress) at the headquarters of the Pilgrims of St. Michael in Rougemont. He was on the commitee of five cardinals in Rome who wrote the Compendium of the social doctrine of the Church, and therefore greatly appreciates our work for social justice. Before going to Quebec City, he had attended our week of study on Social Credit in Rougemont, and then spoke about us to all the cardinals and bishops he met in Quebec City. He will also be present at our International Congress in Rougemont this year (see page 24). Cardinal Ouellet continues: "We celebrate this great International Eucharistic Congress at a time when all of humanity faces the possibility of a food crisis which is sudden and disastrous. Certain basic foods, like rice and corn, have seen their prices doubled or tripled in a few weeks, and this to the great anguish of the poor who do not have the capacity to buy these foods at exhorbitant costs. This situation is intolerable. A quick and concerted action by governmental instances and by the United Nations is necessary and urgent in order to help those who are hungry, and to re-establish the balance in food production and in trade relationships. Let us pray so that the understanding of justice overcome the greed for profit among those who hold economic power.
"We ourselves who now celebrate the Bread of Heaven, the gift of God for the life of the world, we cannot take this bread of life without concerning ourselves also of the fate of those who are hungry. Let us now seek to know and understand the causes of this food crisis and, let us call for some kind of political action, all the while committing ourselves for a greater and more just distribution of basic foodstuff, without forgetting water, so that the poorest not be excluded from the common table."
(Note: This is only one-third of the article on the Eucharist Congress published in our July-August, 2008 issue. The rest will be posted on the web when the September-October issue of “Michael” comes out of press.)
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On
June 15-22, 2008, Quebec City held the 49th International Eucharistic
Congress. This week was filled catecheses, testimonies, liturgies,
adoration, a procession, workshops, etc., that gave those who attended it
a wonderful picture of the richness of the teachings and rites of the
Roman Catholic Church. It showed us how fortunate we are to have so many
gifted cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people committed to the
salvation of souls.
At
the end of the Mass, the Eucharist was placed in a monstrance, which was
hoisted atop the youth-inspired Ark of the New Covenant. Four clergymen
carried the ark and monstrance outside of the arena to one of the several
eucharistic adoration chapels, where pilgrims could pray throughout the
week.
The
Holy Mass on Wednesday was celebrated in the Byzantine-Ukrainian rite by
Bishop Lawrence Huculak, O.S.B.M., Metropolitan Archbishop of Winnipeg for
the Ukrainian Catholics. It was a wonderful opportunity for all
participants to discover the richness of the Eastern rite. (Ukrainian,
Melkite, Maronite, Slovak churches, etc, are all in full communiuon with
Rome.) On this occasion, all the people in the arena received Holy
Communion on the tongue.
