The following is the text of the homily Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory delivered during the Mass he celebrated on July 19, 2024 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis at the start of the third day of the National Eucharistic Congress:
God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. Among those first and well-known creative acts of God that are portrayed in the Book of Genesis was the Lord’s initial separation of light from darkness. That process is still an ongoing task that God continues to undertake in our midst even today. There may be countless occasions when many people might feel that the primal darkness has indeed somehow managed to prevail over light.
Our Eucharistic Congress seeks to reaffirm and to intensify the light that illuminates the truth of Christ’s unique and enduring Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Too many recent surveys and studies suggest that the darkness of doubt and denial has cast an unwelcome shadow over the once widespread acceptance of our Church’s heritage of faith in the Real Presence.
Ours is not the only moment in Church history to raise questions about the reality of Christ’s distinctive and persisting Presence in the Eucharist. From time to time, this same concern has entered our ecclesial life. Great pastors, mystics and learned theologians have attempted to offer explanations regarding the truth of this great gift. Often, however, it is the uncomplicated faith of ordinary people that serves as an assurance of the wonder of this gift. Still each age must come to grips with the profound truth that is Christ’s Eucharistic Presence.
However, believing in Christ’s genuine Eucharistic Presence must also prompt our equally important active response to that Presence in charity in each of our lives offered in service and with care for others, for without that response, the sincerity of our earnest reverence for the Blessed Sacrament will fail to capture the essence of why Christ chooses to remain with us by way of this wondrous Presence.
The most prolonged and profound adoration moments will be inadequate unless they direct us to deeds of kindness toward others. This Eucharistic gift must prompt us to live as does the compassionate Christ who chooses to remain in our midst under the forms of Bread and Wine.
The highest forms and acts of charity, the determined pursuit of social justice and the genuine compassionate outreach toward the poor and the neglected generated from a belief in, and as a response to, Christ’s Eucharistic Presence is a spiritual journey. It is the light that comes from faith – the brilliance that comes as a response to that faith.
Saint John reminds us that we are called to walk in the light of truth and not to continue to amble along in the darkness of sin, ignorance and indifference. Many of you arrived at this Eucharistic Congress having walked with the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament throughout your neighborhoods as pilgrims.
The paths that led us to this assembly came from the four corners of our nation. As people carried the Eucharistic Lord traveling through the communities of our country, we prayed that we might renew our love, our awareness and our respect for this special gift of His Presence. We also prayed that your journeys may have allowed you to see many curious onlookers who might have gazed at you or may have directed questions to you about what you were hoping to achieve with that procession.
Those chance encounters were also opportunities for you to reflect on the reasons that brought about your participation in that journey of faith – a renewal and deepening of our acceptance of Christ’s Eucharistic Presence in our midst. Perhaps your witness to Christ’s Presence may have rekindled the faith of some people who might have watched your spiritual voyage. Maybe it even helped some individuals to think about their own forgotten or neglected faith heritage.
Whatever it might have accomplished, it was well worth the trip.
Along the journey, you no doubt came face to face with a number of homeless people who frequently live on the streets, in parks, under bridges. They too are a genuine reflection of Christ Himself as He reminds us (Mathew 25:31-46). Seeing them, may our hearts be softened, and our eyes opened to His genuine Presence among the poor. Carrying the Eucharistic Christ through some of the depressed areas of our nation was also an important dimension of the journey that brought so many of us here to this venue in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Many of you came to this event as pilgrims – following the Lord in processions. The adventure of a pilgrimage is a religious legacy for many different faith traditions. It is an ancient holy custom.
The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, about pilgrims on the journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket, describing many of them in humorous and often in less than complimentary ways. This famous poem, this story of pilgrims, is nearly 800 years old. Our Muslims brothers and sisters even today also long to make a religious pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca during their lifetime. Some of you may also have been on the Camino pilgrimage to Compostela to visit the Shrine of Saint James.
In each of those journeys, people travel to visit a holy place – a shrine or a church which is the ultimate goal of their voyage. On your journey to Indianapolis, you are bringing the very One who is Himself our desired end and spiritual goal – the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). You brought Him along with yourselves in His Eucharistic Presence.
Jesus is on the pilgrim journey accompanying us – and not merely as the end of the journey but as one who travels the spiritual path along with us.
Like the Lord God once accompanied His people during their time in the desert, Christ will never leave us as we travel with Him as Sacrament and ultimate goal. He is truly present in each step of our life as precious Sacrament and enduring guide. He stays with us as a companion and as food for the journey. He is the Light of the world (John 8:12), and there is no darkness within Him!
God's work of separating light from darkness has Christ as the ultimate triumph and the completion of that task borne and begun in those first moments of creation. God has indeed separated darkness from light, and His Son is indeed the light. Amen.
