Detroit pilgrims celebrate Mass with their chief shepherd at Indianapolis cathedral at start of National Eucharistic Congress
INDIANAPOLIS — Before pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Detroit joined tens of thousands of Catholics from the four corners of the United States gathering at the National Eucharistic Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium, they first stopped at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in downtown Indianapolis to celebrate Mass with their chief shepherd and give thanks for the gift of Christ in the Eucharist.
Eucharistic faith is a “humble faith,” Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron told approximately 300 Detroit-area pilgrims who made the trip to Indianapolis before the kickoff of the congress' festivities.
“Our Lord in the Last Supper said that the new covenant is made real in the Holy Eucharist,” Archbishop Vigneron said during the Mass, concelebrated with more than a dozen Detroit priests and Detroit's four auxiliary bishops. “The Holy Eucharist is the distillation — the covenant to the 10th power squared. The Eucharist is about everything that is true in the covenant because here the all-powerful, powerless, humbled Christ becomes more humble yet again. He becomes our host; he feeds us, and even more humbly, he makes himself the food. This is the all-powerful, powerless God.”
To receive the Eucharist and make room in one's heart for the fullness of the new covenant, one must humble oneself as Christ did for us, Archbishop Vigneron said.
Jesus reveals his covenant to the humble and childlike, his “little ones,” Archbishop Vigneron added.
“That is us,” Archbishop Vigneron told the pilgrims. “I didn’t see any news vans out front, and I didn’t see any Secret Service people around us. We are not superstars, we are the 'little ones' in the covenant.”
The Lord not only humbles himself to draw near to us, but also thanks God the Father for the encounters he has with his faithful, the little ones, the archbishop added.
“That is something we can never forget when we celebrate the Eucharist: the delight it gives Jesus that we are here to be renewed in our marriage to him — that we are here openly professing our humble faith and receiving him in his humble love,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “We are precious to Christ. We are the Father's gift to him, and when we believe, he exalts, and when we celebrate the Eucharist, Jesus at the right hand of the Father, even now, is praising the Father."
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