Embracing the Eucharist stressed in IEC sessions

CEBU, Philippines - His Eminence Orlando Cardinal Quevedo of Cotabato yesterday called for inclusivity in one’s practice of the faith, emphasizing that one should not discriminate others on account of social status, gender, race or nationality.

"We should be a being for others. As Jesus has said, you should do what I have done for you," Quevedo said during his talk on "The Eucharist makes the Church, The Church makes the Eucharist" attended by delegates of the International Eucharistic Congress.

Alongside being open to others, Quevedo said Christians should not be indifferent to burning issues, the most prominent of which are climate change and global warming.

"The Church came into being from the Eucharist and that is awesome grace," he said.

Quevedo said only 20 percent of Catholics hear Mass on Sundays, most of whom are women.

"So, where are the men at the cockpit?" he asked in jest.

The Philippines is predominantly Catholic and Cebu, in particular, is considered the cradle of Christianity in the country and Asia. It was here that Christianity was introduced by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

Another leader of the Catholic Church, Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron, described the act of staying away from Mass as a “spiritual disaster” because it is tantamount to turning away from the Eucharist.

“Why spiritual disaster? Because the Eucharist is the summit and source of the Christian life and if you are staying away from the source and the summit of the Christian life, your Christian life will disappear,” he said.

The 56-year-old bishop presided over the talk “The Eucharist: Celebration of the Paschal Mystery”.

He recalled a time he was giving communion at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City when people rushed to him as if begging for the Body of Christ.

“They seemed, for the entire world, as though they were starving— and this is precisely the correct spiritual attitude toward the Bread of Life. If we don’t take it in, we will, in short order, starve to death spiritually,” he said.

What saddens him these days, he said, is that many Catholics have become indifferent about the Eucharist. He said 70 percent of Catholics “stay away from the Eucharist.”

He said Secularism or a belief system that rejects religion is one of the reasons of this spiritual disaster saying everybody is supposed to be built for God.

“Because there’s nothing in this world that could satisfy us. All the pleasure, all the money, all the power, all the honor in the world can give you but there is still this restlessness in the heart. It’s the restlessness for God. And so the secular ideology, it flattens life out,” Barron said.

He said Filipinos shine the light in this area.

“I don’t know any church right now in the world that is more vibrant than the Filipino church. I’m from Chicago and now serving as an auxiliary bishop of L.A. and in all those places, it’s the Filipino community keeping the church alive,” he said.

“I do think, in God’s often strange providence, he’ll take a particular church, a particular people, and use them as a means to invigorate and to evangelize the rest of the Catholic world. I do believe, in God’s always beguiling providence, you are playing that role now,” Barron said. – (FREEMAN)