The closing Mass of the fourth African National Eucharistic Congress on July 23 sent an estimated 600-plus participants home equipped with courage, reverence for the Eucharist, and a sense of mission.

“With this Mass, we are concluding a journey,” said Bishop Wolfgang Pisa, bishop of the Diocese of Lindi, Tanzania, in his homily at the Mass concluding the three-day gathering at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. 

The congress was hosted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church; the National Association of African Catholics in the United States; and the African Conference of Catholic Clergy and Religious in the United States.

“We have been sent here with the Lord,” added Bishop Pisa, a Capuchin Franciscan. “We are now ready to go on the mission.”

The bishop, who also delivered the homily at the congress’s opening Mass on July 21, touched on each of those elements in his remarks.

“The Eucharist gives us the courage to encounter others with love,” Bishop Pisa said. “Giving all of ourselves needs a lot of courage, needs a lot of effort.”

The bishop added, “We need to adore the Eucharist, like Christ, the son of the living God, is on the altar or in the hands of a priest.”

Noting that congress participants came from all corners of the United States, and that some made a trans-Atlantic flight to be at the congress, Bishop Pisa instructed all in the assembly to rise and to say to those around them, “You are a courageous person.”

Bishop Pisa offered a personal glimpse to illustrate another point. “The priest, at Mass, says a prayer, ‘Do not bring me to judgment and condemnation,’” he said. “Sometimes I say that prayer seven times at each Mass. And then I ask myself: Did I exclude the word ‘not’? ... If I did, I'm asking God, ‘Bring me to judgment and condemnation.’”

The lesson: “The more we mess up, the more we lose people,” he said. “We have to approach the Eucharist with reverence.”

Mission, according to Bishop Pisa, is wherever you find it. 

“If you are the same (at the end of the congress) as the way you came, then there’s something wrong with you,” he said.

To inspire congress participants before they headed home, he told the story of how Vietnamese Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan was devoted to the Eucharist.

Cardinal Van Thuan had been jailed for 13 years shortly after the North Vietnamese took control of South Vietnam in 1975. In his cell, the cardinal could hold up his hand so his fellow prisoners could adore the Eucharist. 

And using whatever scraps of bread could be found, “he celebrated Mass in the palm of his hand,” Bishop Pisa said. “Bread was easy to find,” he added, but not so wine. Eventually, someone stumbled onto an idea that tricked his jailers. Every so often, a small bottle arrived for the Cardinal Von Thuan with the message, ‘This is medicine for the cardinal’s stomach.’”

That heroic cardinal, now on the path to sainthood, was declared venerable in 2017 by Pope Francis.