The Eucharist Is Our Lifeblood: ​​​​​​​Worth Taking Time to Celebrate!

 
              While the big jubilee for my 25^th anniversary has been postponed to the weekend of June 11-12, this past week marked the actual anniversary days for that occasion and two others: the 65^th wedding anniversary for parishioners Virginia and Paul Cloutier, and then Father Lambert’s 4^th anniversary of ordination as a priest! It was nice that we could celebrations these three occasions back-to-back with our daily Mass community, since both sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders are essential to the life of the Church.

As we know, marriage and family are the building blocks of the Church and our society. God gives us these “domestic churches” to provide the stable foundation of unconditional love, faith, forgiveness, and other values we need to grow – personally as well as in relationship with God and with others. St. Paul reminds us: “If I do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2), speaking of the divine love we all need to receive and share. This weekend our Church is blessed to have seven transitional deacons being ordained to be new priests for the Archdiocese of Boston. Much as faithful and holy marriages are the lifeblood of sacrificial love and family life, faithful and holy priests are needed to provide the lifeblood of our sacramental life: the Eucharist.

Recently (while I was sick), I was sad to miss one of the most joyful celebrations of the year in our parishes: First Communion. If only we could treasure our fiftieth, hundredth, and thousandth Communion as much as we do the first one! But we are human, creatures of habit, so the Church provides special Masses like Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi as annual opportunities to us to reflect upon how special this gift-of-self that Jesus makes present at Mass and invites us to fully participate in celebrating and receiving for our spiritual nourishment and strength. But once in a while we need even more extraordinary occasions to honor and grow in appreciation of the unfathomable gift that Christ gives us in the Eucharist.

              This June is just such an extraordinary opportunity! Cardinal Seán has called for the conclusion of our local “Year of the Eucharist” to be marked with a great Eucharistic Congress on the theme “Jesus Is Here!” I encourage you to join me and other parishioners on June 18, 2022 from 8:30am-6:00pm at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Ma., as we participate in this wonderful day of celebration, speakers, and sharing the joy of our faith in the Real Presence of Christ in this Blessed Sacrament of God’s sacrificial love for each one of us. As Communion unites us in His Body, the Church, all of us – priests, religious, and parishioners – need to come together to be built-up and strengthened in our spirituality and the practice of our faith.

              Register today at https://www.evangelizeboston.com/eucharistic-congress/.

              Please also email or call your parish office to let us know you are attending; if we have enough people, we might be able to offer group transportation.
Please share this invitation with other Catholics you know throughout the greater Boston area – especially any who used to go to Mass but have gotten out of the habit since the pandemic. This just might be the joyful opportunity they need to be renewed in their desire to spend time with Christ and the Church, and return to receiving the sacramental nourishment we all need!