Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York celebrated Mass on Thursday morning with a few dozen of his favorite bishops. He spoke to a nearly filled Lucas Oil Stadium on the first full day of the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.
“My fellow pilgrims, to open this first full day of our historic Eucharistic Congress with this holy meal of the Eucharist is fitting indeed, no? Never are we closer to Jesus and each other in His Church than when we gather around the sacred table of the altar to be fed by the bread of heaven, the most Holy Eucharist. And gather we do from all over. … God’s faithful people united in faith in and love for Jesus with us really and truly in the most holy Eucharist. There’s people from all over.”
Cardinal Dolan did a roll call of sorts calling out to those from New Jersey, Brooklyn and Manhattan, then made a few jokes that only a New Yorker could get away with. He also asked to see the many who walked across the country on a true pilgrimage to meet the Lord in Indianapolis.
“Where are our heroes, those perpetual pilgrims who walked 60 days in company with the Most Holy Sacrament? Where are the perpetual pilgrims?”
After a bank of applause, he made another joke at their expense.
“I knew where you were sitting because there is no one around you. After 60 days in those T-shirts, nobody.”
Getting serious, he spoke on the topic of the congress. This is the first nationwide Eucharistic Congress of its kind in 83 years.
“You know we believe the Most Holy Eucharist is a sacrifice, real presence, and a meal, right?” Cardinal Dolan asked. ”The Mass is a sacrifice as we are absorbed into the eternal infinite offering of the Son of God on that cross mounted on that hill called Calvary on that Friday strangely turned Good.
“The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ’s body, blood, soul, divinity as we adore Him locked in a tabernacle, in the monstrance at the altar in a carried procession.
“And the Eucharist is a meal, a meal as we are nourished by our manna, the bread, from heaven.”
As archbishop of New York since 2009, he has made friends with members of the Jewish community. One rabbi explained Jewish Holy Days were about three things. They tried to kill us. God saved us. Let’s eat.
“Not a bad theology, folks,” Cardinal Dolan said.
It was Jesus’ Last Supper before His death and resurrection, that He asked His disciples to eat bread and wine in memory of Him.
“We hunger. We’re famished to eat this sacred meal, especially on Sundays. Our stomachs growl as we are starved for this manna, this bread of heaven. Why? Well, because, isn’t it pretty simple? We want to be close to Jesus in Communion with Him. Pope St. Leo the Great taught we are a new creature filled with the Lord Himself, for the effect of our eating the Body of Christ changes us into what we received. We have Him within us.”
Retired New York Mayor Ed Koch, although Jewish, used to attend Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral because he loved to watch Catholics receive Communion.
“He said they come up so expectantly, receive that bread so reverently, and they walk back with such a recollective kind of posture of faith,” recalled Cardinal Dolan.
He also told of hearing that film director Alfred Hitchcock asked for Communion just before he died.
Father Walter Ciszek, an American Jesuit missionary, was arrested as a Vatican spy during World War II and spent 23 years in the Gulag sneaking Holy Communion with an eye drop of wine or crumb of bread. He then spent five years unable to receive.
“I was deprived of that spiritual food and the powerful reality of Holy Communion. I literally hunger to be able to receive Him once again. I knew I desperately needed that source of strength, that bread of life it provides. It was a hunger of soul as real as the bodily hunger I constantly experienced through those years,” Cardinal Dolan quoted.
Lastly the cardinal reminded those gathered for morning Mass that, “Satan, the world, our dark side, are all trying to kill us. God has saved us. Let’s eat.”