As the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress came to an end in Quito, Ecuador, the Vatican named Sydney as the host of the next International Eucharistic Congress to be held in 2028. Melbourne was the last city in Australia to host an International Eucharistic Congress, in 1973. Held every four years, the event is expected to draw tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world to Sydney.
Speaking to Catholic Weekly, Archbishop of Sydney Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP said the congress will be the largest gathering held in Australia since World Youth Day 2008. ‘The International Eucharistic Congress is a joyous occasion that will deepen our understanding of the truth of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist … As the source and summit of the Christian life, the Eucharist has the power to convert hearts and stir fervour,’ Archbishop Fisher said.
‘The God who dwells among us, Emmanuel, gifts us with his permanent presence through the Eucharist and calls us to follow him so that we might be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13). It is my hope that—in hosting the International Eucharistic Congress—we might renew the sense of solemnity, mystery, welcome and joy in the liturgical life of our city, revitalise our Christian lives, and increase our outreach to those most in need,’ Archbishop Fisher said.
As the source and summit of the Christian life, the Eucharist has the power to convert hearts and stir fervour.
The International Eucharistic Congress in Quito took place between 8 and 15 September under the theme ‘Fraternity to save the world’, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Ecuador’s consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Francis said that one of the many lessons that can be gathered from the congress is the focus on fraternity ‘as an essential condition for a new world; a more just world, a more human world’.
In a video message released by the Vatican, the Pope highlighted the power that lies in the Eucharist through the story of Sr Angela Autsch, a German Trinitarian Sister imprisoned by the Nazis, who died of a heart attack in Auschwitz in 1944. Before being taken captive, Sr Angela invited all her family members—even the distant ones—to receive the Eucharist as a way to resist Nazi oppression with ‘simple and, in certain moments, dangerous gestures, to come as close as possible to the sacrament at the altar—to rebel by receiving Holy Communion,’ Pope Francis said.
He noted that for Sr Angela, promoting frequent Communion and prayer for the Church and the pope ‘was to find in the Eucharist a bond that strengthens the vigour of the Church itself’ and its members, as well as a way of organising ‘a resistance that the enemy cannot thwart because it does not respond to a human design.
This is how we grow as brothers; this is how we grow as Church, united by the water of baptism and purified by the Holy Spirit.
‘These simple gestures are what make us more aware that if one member suffers, the whole body suffers with it,’ Pope Francis said, urging all to return to ‘a radical fraternity with God and among people’.
The early Church fathers believed that the sign of bread ‘enkindles in the people of God the desire for fraternity … In the same way that bread cannot be made with a single grain, we also must walk together since, being many, we are one body, one bread,’ the Pope said. ‘This is how we grow as brothers; this is how we grow as Church, united by the water of baptism and purified by the Holy Spirit.’
Pope Francis called for ‘a deep fraternity, born of union with God, born of letting ourselves be ground—like wheat—in order to become bread, the body of Christ … We are one in the one Lord of our life; we are one in a way that we are not able to fully understand, but what we do understand is that only in this unity can we serve the world and heal it,’ the Pope emphasised.
The International Eucharistic Congress in Quito emphasised the healing power of the Eucharist to address the many ‘wounds of the world’, such as ecological crises, the challenges of mass immigration, political polarisation and the deep divides between nations across the globe.
The power that heals the world is the power of God.
US Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who chaired the board of the most recent US National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, pointed out that both events emphasised the theme of healing brought by the Eucharist. While we cannot change darkness, he said, we can shine Christ’s light to the world. ‘The power that heals the world is the power of God. We’re called to demonstrate by the way that we live—and by the way that we forgive—that we’re able to love the way Christ loves,’ Bishop Cozzens concluded.
