A Eucharistic Triumph in Indianapolis

The Catholic Thing

By Stephen P. White The 10th National Eucharistic Congress was a triumph. Ask anyone who was there in Indianapolis, and I'm confident you will hear much the same from them. Every person I spoke with during and since the Congress said it exceeded their expectations. It certainly exceeded mine. When I say the Congress was a triumph, I do not mean that it was proof of what the Church in the United States can accomplish with enough money and enough skill in organization or planning. The Congress staff, many of whom worked tirelessly for years to make this moment possible, deserve every bit of praise and gratitude they have received for this tremendous event. But no one who was in attendance in Indianapolis, or who, say, spent hours in the check-in line, would tell you that what happened in Indy was a triumph of human effort, ingenuity, or efficiency. Moreover, I think the organizers themselves would emphatically agree. The National Eucharistic Congress could not have succeeded were it not for their hard work, but not one of them would tell you the success of the Congress is a testament to their own efforts. The same can be said for the sponsors (large and small), the speakers and presenters, the pilgrims, the performers and musicians, the bishops, the thousands of priests and religious, the innumerable volunteers and the rest of the 50,000+ attendees. Each contributed in some way to the material success of the Congress, to be sure, but none of them could or would claim that the Congress was a success - let alone a triumph - on account of their efforts. Mere human efforts, taken individually or collectively, simply cannot explain what happened in Indianapolis. What did happen? The Church in the United States, for all its brokenness, division, confusion, anger and hurt, placed her meager gifts - the work of human hands - at the service of the Lord. He has blessed those gifts, transformed them, and will return them one-hundred-fold. That was the triumph of Indianapolis. The People of God gathered to meet the Lord, bringing with us all our imperfections and weaknesses, expectations and agendas. And none of that mattered. Throughout the whole of the crowded, crazy, and occasionally chaotic Congress, peace and joy reigned. His presence was palpable and pervasive. Everyone who was there knew, everyone understood: "The Lord is here. Jesus is here." From a distance, the Congress must have looked like quite the spectacle: the crowds, the festival atmosphere, the stadium lights, the Catholic celebrities. On social media, I noticed, there was no shortage of hot-takes about, and criticisms of, the Congress. It was too expensive, or too corporate, or too loud, or too Trad, or not traditional enough, or too politically charged, or politically impotent, or not focused on Christ's sacrifice, or not locally-minded, or too clericalist, or emotivist, or any of ten thousand things. Not all such criticisms are substantively wrong, though they invariably seemed to come from people who were not in attendance. A grandiose spectacle does not a new Pentecost make. As the Prophet Elijah can attest, the presence of God is as likely to be found in the gentlest whisper as in fire or thunder or crashing stones. I am not, generally, a fan of large gatherings. I dislike crowds, am suspicious of mass displays of emotion (particularly where religion is concerned) and have a life-long aversion for that genre of contemporary music known as "praise and worship." But being there at the Congress - kneeling in the utter silence of Lucas Oil Stadium with 50,000 other souls, adoring the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament - such criticisms seem almost as comically irrelevant as my own prior expectations. He was there and we all knew He was there. That is what mattered. And He was there, not because of something we had accomplished, but rather because of something He was, and is still, accomplishing. I have heard many attendees compare this Eucharistic Congress to the Denver Wo...