Catholics grow in intimacy with Jesus during first regional Eucharistic congress

'Isn't it always better to spend time in person?' Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers challenges 500 attendees at St. Kieran

SHELBY TOWNSHIP — Nearly 500 Catholics from the Northeast Region of the Archdiocese of Detroit gathered at St. Kieran Catholic Church on Saturday, April 6, for the first of four regional Eucharistic congresses as part of the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival, a movement to draw people closer to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Launched by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the feast of Corpus Christi in 2022, the national revival began as a way to focus on the need for Catholics to be more in love and devoted to the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, said Fr. Mario Amore, director of evangelization and missionary discipleship for the Archdiocese of Detroit, speaking to those gathered.

The national revival will culminate with a National Eucharistic Congress in July in Indianapolis, but Fr. Amore said the regional congress events provide an opportunity for Catholics to grow in intimacy with the Eucharist even if they can't travel to Indianapolis.

The April 6 event, called "Love Outpoured," included speakers, music, prayer ministry, Eucharistic adoration, and Mass at St. Kieran.

During his homily at the close of the congress, Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. Fisher emphasized that the National Eucharistic Revival is a reminder to all that Jesus Christ is present among us now, body, blood, soul and divinity.

"He wants to be with us up close and personal,” Bishop Fisher said. "It’s why we come together for Mass and why we come together for adoration, as well. Adoration flows from the Mass — it’s a chance for us to feel this closeness to the Lord. And when we do that, our lives are different; our lives are truly more focused on the good and more focused on what God wants us to do in our lives and in the broader community. As we continue our celebration of this Eucharistic revival, it is all about intimacy with our Lord.”

Before spending time with the Blessed Sacrament, which was housed in a five-foot-tall monstrance, attendees broke off into two groups to listen to the keynote speakers, Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers in English and Antonio Guzmán-Díaz in Spanish.

Jesus is unequivocally clear in his language that as Catholics, we are invited to eat his flesh and drink his blood, Deacon Burke-Sivers said, and through his sacrificial blood, there is healing.

“It is probably true to say that many of us in here have been wounded and are still carrying the anger, resentment and pain of something that happened to us in the past,” said Deacon Burke-Sivers, host of “Beacon of Truth” on EWTN Radio and author of several Catholic books.

Because of this pain, Deacon Burke-Sivers said, “we can’t take our life with God to the next level, we can’t take our marriage to the next level, we can’t take our relationship with our children to the next level because we are stuck. The things that happened to us in the past and the memories and the resentment and the anger that we feel are still there."

"God cannot come into (our lives) without us making room for Him to come in and make that change. He wants to (come in), but God won’t force us to love him,” he said.

Making room for God means spending time before him in adoration and loosening our grip on whatever hurt is holding us back, Deacon Burke-Sivers said. While God wants to take the pain away, He needs our cooperation, he added.

“Think about it like this: If you walked into your kitchen and saw your 3-year-old granddaughter holding a huge, sharp knife by the blade, would you snatch it out of her hand? No way, because you’d cut her hand off," Deacon Burke-Sivers said.

Rather, a person in such a scenario would take a gentle approach, asking the child to open her palm so you could see and remove the knife safely, the deacon said.

“That’s what the Lord wants to do for you today during adoration,” Deacon Burke-Sivers said. “You (might be) holding onto the knife of a rape, the memories of the molestation that happened to you as a child. (Maybe) you’re holding onto the memory of the husband who beat you because he was drunk or maybe because he felt like it. You might be holding onto resentment for your kids who are away from the Church. Maybe you are holding onto anger because when you were young, you were bullied because you were the wrong color, or you had glasses, or braces, or an accent.

“Today, before him, in his Real, True Presence, he wants to come to you, and he says to you, ‘What have you got there? Can I see that?’ In his presence, God wants you to come to him and open your hand," Deacon Burke-Sivers said. "He goes, ‘Oh, I see — that’s the alcohol, that’s the drugs, the suicide attempt, the depression — can you give that to me?"

While we can pray and open up to God anywhere, Deacon Burke-Sivers said there's nothing more powerful that spending time in person with the Blessed Sacrament.

“I travel a lot, and when I call my wife, I like to FaceTime or Skype so I can see her when I talk to her. But I’d rather be with her,” Deacon Burke-Sivers said. “Isn’t it always better to be in the presence of the person that you love when you talk to them? That is what adoration is.”

The silence of adoration allows a person to hear God speak to their heart, Deacon Burke-Sivers added. “In order to hear His voice, we have to be quiet — to ‘be still and know that I am God,’” he said.

In these moments of silence, God will speak and call us to change our lives for Him, perhaps in uncomfortable ways, the deacon added.

“If you want to see the Lord put things in your life that you didn’t think were possible, spend time in adoration," Deacon Burke-Sivers said. "It is not my promise; it’s God’s promise.”

This life-giving Eucharistic message is one that needs to be heard by all people, Deacon Bob Gajda from St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford told Detroit Catholic. Deacon Gajda attended the Northeast congress to hear Deacon Burke-Sivers speak and encouraged the faithful throughout the archdiocese to attend the upcoming congresses.

“I pray that people from other parishes around attend these (congresses); they need to be here themselves experiencing it,” Deacon Gajda said. “It is very important that priests and leaders encourage people to go and experience the lift the Eucharist can have in the world.”

The next regional Eucharistic congress will take place Saturday, April 27, at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Allen Park. Each event is free and open to everyone.