Welcome back!! On July 20th 2024 the Catholic Church had its fourth day of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress. The theme for the day was This Is My Body (fun fact it's merely a coincidence that the theme of day and my title as I titled all these Congress posts before I knew each daily theme). The Empower speakers for today were Lisa Brenninkmeyer and Paul Albert; for my last breakout session, I attended the Women's Sessions, called "Reveal the Gift: The Eucharist and the Feminine Genius and given by Lisa Cotter; the Revival Session speakers were Gloria Purvis and Bishop Robert Barron. Ok before we get into the talks there's a couple things that occurred that day that were not directly talk related. First, it was my birthday. So I'm officially 25, so that means I'm more firmly "old" to any person under the age of ten. Secondly, I went to a wonderful lunch at Bucca Di Peppo's, courtesy of Franciscan. Walking to the lunch, and during it, I met and reconnected with many wonderful people, and some how managed to get Fr. Dave Pivonka to half-bless dessert (cannolis). Lastly, many Congress attended a Eucharistic Procession through the Streets of Downtown Indianapolis. I attempted to livestream this over Instagram, but my phone overheated and since my phone was low battery, I decided not try to recover the stream. But let's dive into the talks for the day.
The first speaker for my last Empower session was Lisa Brenninkmeyer. She is the founder of Walking with Purpose, a Catholic apostolate fostering community for women through Bible Studies. Her talk initially started talking about the "epidemic of loneliness". There was a discussion of the difficulties in choosing community such as the opportunity to get hurt. Yet, Brenninkmeyer encouraged those is the session to "[Choose] community over comfort". Everything or at least most things today, seem seen through the lens of comfort. If one gets offended, not only is an apology expected, every single time, but often if one offends you it often appears that you can no longer be around that person. So, community becomes often more of an echochamber.. Then these echochambers make "war" with each other. So even more so "Isolation is frankly easier". If your are isolated, from others outside, and maybe even inside of your family. The irony is that this isolation causes a lot more sadness since we are created for community. Be careful though, cause community is much more complicated. Not only that but as Brenninkmeyer says "The Path to finding community is not a spiritual wellness alternative". Community is not an alternative to prayer. Community is not a replacement for relationship with God. Community is supposed to draw us toward a deeper relationship God, so it's going to be uncomfortable, and sometimes even offend you, and me. Talking of prayer, it is essential to beginning to branch out or go out on mission. But it can't be just a once a week kind of thing or sporadic. Well, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself and stealing the fire from the next talk.
The final speaker of the Empower sessions, was Paul Albert, a Haitian American, who is a former LifeTeen missionary. He stressed "Our rhythm of prayer is our lifeline". Lifeline to what? It is our lifeline to life. Without prayer, we have no meaningful relationship with Jesus/God the Father. But creating a rhythm of prayer can be difficult to create. It can feel like if you only have five minutes, that's not enough, or doing enough. Yet, even pausing for 5-10 minutes giving your first fruits to God changes everything. This can lead to realization, in a deeper way, that you are called to mission. However, an irony in this world is that "Missionary zeal does not make sense". When Catholic Christians, or any member of another religion for that matter, are on fire, it mystifies anyone who comes into contact with them. It gives them the eternal question of why; even when you explain, the answer may still become a stumbling block. Yet sometimes, even on fire individuals what have a lot of missionary zeal, may feel ill equipped to go on mission, if they don't know every intricate argument to prove the truth of the religion. Albert reminded the crowd, "all you need is your witness, your testimony". Yet, sharing your testimony can feel daunting. Even if, no one can argue with your testimony, the fear of rejection can paralyze you. You open yourself up to judgement, one something that factually can't be argued, per se., but share it anyway. Sometimes though perhaps the fear of sharing your testimony may come from the idea that you don't fit inside the perceived box of "a good Catholic". Sometimes though, it may not even be the religious, but the secular ideal that prevents one from sharing a testimony. These two things, the religious ideal and secular ideal can be difficulat for men and women. Which brings us to our next talk.
My final breakout session speaker was Lisa Cotter, a former FOCUS missionary, along with her husband, and later her family, who now reaches out to women. One of her most important points she said was "it's not about what we do it's about who we are". In secular society, it seems like the ideal woman changes at the drop of a hat (Cotter had gone through the "ideal women" of the last 50 years). But it is not the same with the Church, they have a standard, yes, which the Ideal of this standard is Mary. However, this ideal is less about the externals and more about internal, in a way. Of course, we are supposed to imitate her actions, but her actions flow from her virtue. Her virtues are most clear through her heart pondering prayer. Yet, there are several ways to show your virtue when imitating the Mother of God. As Cotter said "we are not a church of stereotypes". This is clear through the lives of the saints. Two of my favorite Saints are St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and St. Kateri Tekawitha. While they both focused on taking care of the marginalized, one went beyond her community even creating her own, while the other stayed within her own and served those in a contained area. St. Mother Theresa struggled to create the Missionaries of Charity to serve the poor in India, but once it started, it would eventually become national. Yet, St. Kateri had to fight to even remain a virgin, and for her Catholic identity. St. Mother Theres died in old age after experiencing a spiritual darkness of 40 years. St. Kateri died young, though she was miraculously healed of the scars of small pox. One thing they have in common is their receptivity. It's one of those gifts which Cotter Pointed out women are more naturally inclined and she said "receptivity is our superpower". It is so true. I look around me at all the women so ready to tap into this superpower. One woman who especially lives this, who I observe often, is my mom. She is receptive in being the leader of the pro-life group. She is so ready to help others, which is also generous. She is receptive to the need of both my siblings with kids. This really showed in January 2024, when she spent half the month in Pennsylvania helping my sister and her family, as sickness just tore through the house. What unity in the family, which leads us to the first revival talk of the evening.
The firs Keynote for the Revival session was Gloria Purvis. She is a Catholic speaker and runs the Gloria purvis Podcast. Her talk was centered around unity, it signs and the signs of its opposite. Her first point which spoke to me was how "There is that unity that is real because God spoke it". This was drawn from God creating male and female. Yet, it also reminded me how unity comes from God, not the world. Since God is the standard of unity, then we should look at ask how does he define unity? For Catholics, one primary sign of unity is the Pope. Which brings me to the second thing from her speech which resonated with me. She shared a story about being part of a delegation of media personalities, I think, from around the world. She actually at one point wanted to sneak off and visit a sight where Peter suffered, but she perceived a voice saying to "'No, Gloria, go see the current Peter in his current suffering'". This reminds me how easy it is to remember and laud the saints for their suffering, but how hard it is to accompany others when they are suffering. Yes, the Pope is far from perfect. But in some ways, I feel that all you see him receive is criticism rarely, if ever praise. So, it's nice to see someone realizing he needs accompaniment in his suffering. The last thing she said that speaks volumes is that
"I'm like a Barnacle on the side of the Church". She said this in talking about the messiness of the Church, and the her members aren't perfect. This reminds me now matter the up and downs, even when it feels like sins like racism, which she highlighted as sign of disunity. To be honest, some of the things she said about this topic challenged me, I think I have, and perhaps many others too, bought into the politics of this topic. Yet, racism is a sin, pure and simple, and reparation needs to be made for it. That does not mean we can not disagree on how to make such reparation for it. Detaching things like racism and abortion, from the political narratives around them, but I think it must be done if we are to make any progress in combatting them. Detachment from the world in general is some the next speaker Bishop Robert Barron touched on.
The final speaker of the evening Bishop Robert Barron. He is famous for his Word on Fire Apostolate (keep your eyes peeled cause I may be reviewing an academic journal produced by them at some point) and is currently a bishop in the diocese of Winona-Rochester. I'll be honest I missed the first couple minutes of his talk because I had to go the bathroom, and then I got a pretzel. However, the majority of his talk centered around how to live the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a layperson (even though he isn't). First he spoke about was poverty. The take away for me was that to live poverty "Is to live in the space of detachment". This means once we have all that we need, the rest we leave open to be given to others, especially the poor. Even that which we do need, we don't attach ourselves too much to it. In the world of consumerism, this can definitely be difficult, but it is possible. It takes a perspective shift, which is other focused rather than self-focused, without of course completely forgetting self, because that is an excess of self-giving. Now, on to chastity. This is the boogieman of modern society. Perhaps, this is because chastity is primarily associated with sexuality. Chastity is broader than that. But Barron pointed out the Church calls the faithful "to bring the whole of ones sexuality under the egis of love". What does he mean by "egis of love"? Love is abused in this day and age. It is often understood as only an emotion and as emotions are changeable love can be lost. Yet, Catholicism, and hopefully all Christian confessions, believe that love is an action, not merely an emotion. Therefore, bringing sexuality under the egis of love means we do not use it as a tool for mere pleasure, but in some way for the good of the other. While talking about obedience he spoke about why worldy things don't matter as much as being a good person and following what God wants, and he directly spoke to young people saying "That's all that matters everything else in your life is a footnote". This reminds me that whether or not I am using my degree does not matter; yes, it's good to seek employment which uses it, but that's not the meaning of my life. It reminds that whether I live with my parent for 1 year (it's already been more) or 20 years (mom and dad I promise I don't plan on it) after college, it doesn't matters. What matters is am I following God's plan for my life, which may not always be easy to note every moment. What matters is am I seeking to work on my weakness, my habitual sins, with God to make me holier. What really matters, and what I want lauded in my eulogy is my character, not my accomplishments, even if those are mentioned. So what have we got to lose... let's stop focusing on the footnotes and focus on the page of the chapter God is writing, with our cooperation, of course.
Well, check back soon for my reflections on the last day of the Congress, which was only the last Revival session and the closing liturgy
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