ENCORE: Bread for New Life, Mass for the multitudes
The following article about the Mass for the Jefferson City diocese’s Eucharistic Congress for Jubilee 2000 was published in the Aug. 25, 2000, edition of The Catholic Missourian.
An estimated 4,000 people from all over the Diocese of Jefferson City came together on Aug. 20 to celebrate the intimate, life-giving presence of Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
It was intensely Eucharistic.
“What a beautiful sight you are, the face of Christ in the heartland of Missouri,” said Bishop John R. Gaydos, presider and homilist, to the largest Catholic congregation in the diocese’s history.
Pope John Paul II gave Bishop Gaydos the authority to confer upon the congregation an Apostolic Blessing, including a plenary indulgence.
The Mass, celebrated in the University of Missouri’s massive Hearnes Center arena in Columbia, was the culmination of a two-day diocesan Eucharistic Congress, held at the pope’s urging as part of the Church-wide Jubilee 2000 celebration.
Several hundred people attended the catechetical portion of the Congress on Aug. 19 at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Columbia. Even more gathered for midday Mass in Our Lady of Lourdes Church.
In his homily at the Hearnes Center, Bishop Gaydos spoke of the Eucharist as the Sacrament of Unity.
“Through Jesus’s own freely given consent, he pours himself out for us in the Eucharist, and we respond to his love by committing ourselves to his mission of peace on earth,” the bishop said. “That is what we accomplish on this beautiful day, at this Eucharistic Congress, and at every Eucharist we celebrate.”
The Eucharist, said Bishop Gaydos, is nothing less than union with Jesus an done another.
“When we celebrate the Eucharist, we consent fully to our vocation to follow Jesus Christ without conditions,” he said. “We give Jesus permission to lead us where he will, and to shape our community in the manner that he desires. The Eucharist gives us courage to do this.”
He noted that Christ’s first followers believed profoundly in his real, nourishing presence in the Eucharist.
“Jesus was truly present in the mysterious celebration, under the appearances of bread and wine,” Bishop Gaydos said.
John’s Gospel, written down at a time when some Christians were calling the Real Presence into question, address the subject head-on.
“The Evangelist reports the teaching of Jesus in a clear, emphatic manner to remove all doubt about this vital Christian belief,” Bishop Gaydos said. “The teaching is uncompromising. It presents us with the sheer physical reality of the gift which brings us into communion with God and one another.”
Jesus himself, quoted in Sacred Scripture, insists on the objective reality of the gift of himself, broken and poured out in the sacrificial, sacramental bread and wine.
“What Jesus offers for the life of the world is real food and real drink,” the bishop said.
The Son did not come to abolish the law nor God’s covenant with his Chosen People; rather, he came to fulfill these as only he could, by living them fully and being perfectly obedient.
“People cannot match God for faithfulness,” said Bishop Gaydos. “The New Covenant is the person of Christ.”
This New Covenant, one of love for God and each other, finds expression in the communal and missionary aspects of the Eucharist.
“It is a celebration and demonstration that we are not individuals with private contracts with God,” Bishop Gaydos said. “We are a people who share a covenant with God. That covenant is not private; it’s social, it’s communal. We become what we celebrate: the Body of Christ, the presence of Christ in the world, and we pour out our lives in service of God and our neighbor.”
Through a life and death of perfect obedience, Christ made himself the perfect sacrifice. Through the Eucharist, he announced the New Covenant and salvation through his own death.
“Ever after, bread and wine broken and poured out in his memory would be a sign of the New Covenant between God and his people,” Bishop Gaydos said. “Christ made the one perfect offering to God and enables us to share in that offering. In the Eucharist, we associate ourselves with the ultimate offering, Jesus Christ himself.”
The Eucharist means entering into Holy Communion with Jesus and with one another, Bishop Gaydos said.
“He loves us in our individuality and calls us into communion,” he stated. “The real food that is Jesus nourishes our unity and makes it possible to serve the world into which he sends us. ... It is from the Eucharist that the Church and every believer draw indispensable strength to proclaim and witness to all people the Gospel of salvation.”
True unity only comes when every believer accepts the wonderful uniqueness of every other member of the Church, said Bishop Gaydos.
Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe, now retired, of the Jefferson City diocese and more than 100 active and retired priests of the diocese concelebrated the Mass. Joining them were more than 30 active and retired deacons.
More than 150 Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus from throughout the diocese formed the honor guard.
Bishop Gaydos acknowledged that 2000 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Knights’ first Fourth Degree assembly.
About 100 knights and dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem also took part in the procession.
A choir and ensemble made up of musicians and vocalists from many parts of the diocese led the singing.
Dressed in bright orange shirts with Jubilee Eucharist logos, young people from parishes in Columbia and Boonville joined the local Knights as ushers and escorted the priests who distributed Holy Communion.
The altar, presider’s chair and other sanctuary furnishings were built for and used at Pope John Paul’s Jan. 27, 1999, Mass at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis. The St. Louis archdiocese lent the items, along with the vessels for the distribution of Holy Communion, to the Jefferson City diocese for the Mass.
The chalice Bishop Gaydos used was the one the late Bishop Joseph M. Marling C.PP.S., founding bishop of the diocese, used at his installation Mass in St. Peter Church in Jefferson City on July 2, 1956.
After the Jubilee Mass, each member of the congregation was served a packaged dinner prepared by a local caterer.
