Like many others who attended the 10th National Eucharistic Congress last month in Indianapolis, I was awestruck by the experience. You may have read about it, seen videos or talked to someone who went.
The speakers were captivating and challenging. It was amazing to attend liturgies with thousands of other Catholics — at one point over 50,000 people. There were lights and fog machines and beautiful music and processions with rows and rows of clergy and religious that seemed endless. Everything was prepared and produced with excellence. It was a marvelous spectacle, and it was obviously very moving and impactful for so many.
By the final days of the Congress, however, I was very tired of spectacle and longing for simplicity. I might have been the only one, but I doubt it.
One morning, I stole away to a parish on the suburban outskirts of the city for early Mass, a celebration that was in many ways typical of the ones I attend all the time. The atmosphere was quiet and prayerful and I could sit anywhere I liked. The music was well-appointed and accompanied simply on a piano. The preaching was direct and concise. It was perhaps not as thrilling as Lucas Oil Stadium, but it was so joyful.
Occasionally, we all need a big, overwhelming spiritual experience like the Eucharistic Congress, World Youth Day, L.A. Congress, Kairos retreats and the like. They excite and renew us and often provide inspiration for the future.
On Aug. 6, the Church celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration. As I listened to the Gospel account of Jesus’s ascent to the mountaintop, I couldn’t help but to think of my experience at the National Eucharistic Congress.
At the pinnacle, there is a great to-do. Jesus’s clothes dazzle. There is smoke and mist and shadow. Elijah and Moses take center stage. Peter and James and John and all the big names are there. But after all of that, Jesus walks back down the side of the mountain with his disciples and gives them a seemingly odd admonition: Don’t talk about this.
Jesus knew that you cannot stay on the mountaintop. The air is too thin to breathe, and nothing grows. Spiritual highs are wonderful, but they are not sustainable. Eventually, we have to descend to reality and consider the question, “What now?”
What are the fruits of the Eucharistic Congress, and how can they be carried forward? We could use this energy to push a new program or to plan for the next big event. But I think that the best fruit of these efforts can be found in the Eucharist itself, that long-sustaining food for the soul.
The lasting impact of this mountaintop experience should be a commitment to receive the living bread over and over again in the most simple and mundane of contexts.
It has been a wonderfully inspiring and productive summer. I am glad, however, to climb down the mountain and get back to the no-less-wonderful work of Eucharistic living.
