Minnesota Eucharistic Congress kicks off Marian Route

The Northern Cross 

Bishops from Minnesota and North and South Dakota, amid with the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus and about 3,000 of the faithful, gathered at the beginning of the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress in Bemidji May 17. The event, jointly hosted by the Diocese of Duluth and the Diocese of Crookston, brought in several speakers and led into a Pentecost Mass at Itasca State Park that launched the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer) 

“I think one of the best bits of spiritual advice I could give to everyone here is: Stay close to the fire,” Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron told more than 3,000 Catholics gathered at the Sanford Center in Bemidji May 17. “… Stay close. Stay close to the light and to the fire.” 

Bishop Barron gave the opening keynote address at the two-day Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, hosted jointly by the Diocese of Crookston and the Diocese of Duluth May 17-18. The event brought people from all over Minnesota and neighboring states, and from as far away as Texas and California, as well as from Canada. A dozen bishops, more than 100 priests and deacons, and people from several religious communities were among them. 

Thousands gather May 18 for the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, held at the Sanford Center in Bemidji. (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer)

Bishop Barron was drawing from a “beautiful image” given by the saint he described as his “spiritual hero,” St. Thomas Aquinas, who said that when the words of consecration are said in the Mass, “it’s as though a great fire has been kindled in a new place.” 

Particularly in the practice of Eucharistic Adoration, he said, people can remain “close to the fire,” which he described as light and warmth in a dark and cold world. He added that it’s a practice he got from his students years ago when he was teaching at Mundelein Seminary. 

“To be honest with you, when I was coming of age as a young seminarian and even a young priest, Eucharistic Adoration was kind of frowned upon,” he said. “… You know who the great prophet was? It was Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.” 

Archbishop Sheen, he noted, had always recommended that priests make a daily Holy Hour, and his students had heard it from him watching his shows on EWTN. “I watched my own students doing this practice of the Holy Hour until I began doing it and found it to be of enormous spiritual power,” he said. “I hope it’s essential to this Eucharistic Revival that we pick up Sheen’s recommendation.” 

Bishop Daniel J. Felton of Duluth processes with the Eucharist May 17 at the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, held at the Sanford Center in Bemidji. (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer)

The congress followed up his talk with a Holy Hour, led by Duluth Bishop Daniel Felton, who offered short, guided meditations inviting people to open their hearts to Jesus in the places where they needed healing or lacked trust. Duluth musician Aly Aleigha and a schola from the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus provided music. 

Leading the Eucharistic Revival 

Bishop Barron and Crookston Bishop Andrew Cozzens have both played important roles in the National Eucharistic Revival. Bishop Cozzens, welcoming participants to the event alongside Bishop Felton, said he was tasked by the U.S. bishops with leading the Eucharistic Revival, but it was originally Bishop Barron’s idea. 

However, Bishop Cozzens said it was his “crazy idea” to process the Blessed Sacrament across the whole country, starting from east and west and south and north. 

That’s how an outdoor Pentecost Mass May 19 in Itasca State Park at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, at the close of the Eucharistic Congress, was chosen as the start of the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. 

“Beginning with the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, we will be traveling many roads, as we walk with Jesus to Indianapolis and the National Eucharistic Congress, like the disciples who walked the road with Jesus to Emmaus,” Bishop Felton said. 

The two-day event highlighted some of the strong faith leaders in Minnesota. In addition to the opening keynote by Bishop Barron, the closing keynote was by Father Mike Schmitz, a priest of the Duluth Diocese, who has gained a national following, among other things for his enormously popular “Bible in a Year” and “Catechism in a Year” podcasts and his YouTube videos for Ascension. 

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, was the principal celebrant at Mass on the second day of the congress, and in his homily, he said, “It’s clear to me that there are magnificent things going on in Minnesota. I’m very, very proud to be able to tell people that I’m from Minnesota.” 

St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda delivers his homily during Mass May 18 at the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress in Bemidji. Urging the 3,000 faithful there to follow the biblical image of running the good race, he said, “As beautiful as it is, brothers and sisters, to see all of you here, I get more excited when I think about you all spreading, dispersing throughout our state and giving witness to what you experienced.” (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer)

He noted that on a plane trip earlier in the week he had been asked where he was from, and when he was identified as a priest from Minnesota, the first question was “Do you know Father Mike Schmitz?” 

He said it’s “about 50-50” between those who ask if he knows Father Schmitz and those who ask if he knows Bishop Barron. 

Another of the main speakers, Dominican Sister Jude Andrew Link, who traveled to the congress from Oregon, shared a similar experience, noting that when she told her students, high school juniors, that she was speaking at the same conference as Father Schmitz, her “street cred” went “way up.” 

The Road from Emmaus 

Sister Jude Andrew, on Saturday morning, gave a rich theological meditation on the Paschal Mystery, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, and the mysteries of Mary’s life, interweaving several works of art and hymns with the writing of saints and quotes from the Catechism. 

She talked about the joy of Eucharistic Processions and how she once had a kindergarten student tell her with joy, “Jesus came to my classroom today.” 

“Imagine all the places Jesus is going to go in the next couple of months,” she said. 

Describing the virtue of hope, she described the experiences of people in Oregon seeing salmon swim upstream even in small creeks, as part of their mysterious homing instinct. 

A religious sister stands with arms outstretched toward the monstrance displaying the Eucharist for veneration May 18 at the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, held at the Sanford Center in Bemidji. The congress precedes the May 19 commencement of the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer)

“What’s my point? If God put that memory of home deep in a fish — a fish, people, a fish! — can you imagine how much deeper he put the memory of heaven in you, whom he made in his image? Jesus Christ is the way. And he’s come to take us home, so that we can find our place at the Father’s table.” 

She emphasized the wonder of Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist and what the National Eucharistic Procession means. 

“The one whom we will carry in procession tomorrow is the one who carries the world — Being itself, who holds all creation in existence, who’s held in our hands,” she said. 

Bishop Cozzens, in a Saturday address, spoke of a simple walk to McDonald’s for a fruit smoothie the weekend prior to the congress, where he encountered a group of young people. 

“I was trying not to judge those young people, and I was actually even trying to be friendly to them,” he said. “But it was clear to me, by their dress, by their language, by the way that they were acting, that they were not young people who value a relationship with Jesus, And of course, none of us would have expected that McDonald’s in Crookston would be filled with young people who value a relationship with Jesus on a Friday night.” 

He said as he was praying the next day, that truth sat heavily on him, to the point he could still see their faces. “And I could see, actually, the emptiness that was beneath their humor, their way of being,” he said. “And I knew that the Lord wanted more for them. In fact, I was praying for them that they would be able to be healed and come to know the Lord.” 

He said the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, with thousands of people wanting their “hearts to be temples of Jesus,” was important for that. 

He said Minnesotans know how to build a campfire, starting small and building it up. “And that became, for me, an image of what God wants to do,” Bishop Cozzens said. “He wants to start a fire, but not just a small fire, a bonfire, right? And that fire begins with a small fire,” like the few thousand people gathered in Bemidji. 

He said that the Eucharist makes present the Paschal Mystery: the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “Why does God do that?” he asked. “Why does God make his Paschal Mystery present? So that you and I can live it. So that you and I can live from it, and participate in it.” 

He said Jesus wants it to be the heart and meaning of our lives, and particularly a way to transform our suffering, uniting it to Jesus’ suffering, so that it can become part of the redemption of the world. 

He said the young people at McDonald’s suffer, and Jesus wants to heal and redeem them, perhaps because someone like those attending the congress will befriend them, which can only work if the Holy Spirit is already working in their hearts. 

Attendees pray at the Star of the North Eucharistic Congress, held at the Sanford Center in Bemidji May 18. (OSV News photos/Courtney Meyer)

“The only way that will happen is if someone like you is willing to suffer for them,” he said. 

Father Schmitz, delivering his remarks via video due to what he described as an “emergent surgery” on his back, spoke about the passage in Luke’s Gospel of the Road to Emmaus, where two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem after the death of Jesus and he joins them, but they did not recognize him until be blessed and broke bread with them — an encounter with the Eucharist. 

Father Schmitz highlighted a detail from the Bible passage, noting that the disciples had already heard Jesus was alive, but they were still walking away, perhaps unable to imagine that Jesus would redeem Israel through his suffering, death, and resurrection, offering only a kind of “conditional” faith based on their expectations. 

But when they recognized him, they immediately went back to Jerusalem to bear witness. “The road from Emmaus is just as important, if not more important, than the road to Emmaus,” Father Schmitz said. 

He offered that as an encouragement to those at the congress. 

“Too often we go back to who we were before,” he said. “There’s no time to waste. … All we can do is tell people what we have heard and what we have seen. You have joy to share, you have a hope to share, you have a message to share. To not share it would be a disaster.” 

An ‘outpouring of the Holy Spirit’ 

“I just can’t believe the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that’s been here,” said Foy Cox, who traveled from Grand Forks, N.D.. “Everybody — the rosary outside for life, Bishop Barron last night, the adoration, the confession. Everything has just been magnificent and the Spirit has poured out. You can just see the smiles on the people’s faces. It’s radiating.” 

The sight of so many people living their faith was a highlight for others. 

“The biggest joy is seeing all the people and the excitement about their faith,” said Diana Moravitz, from Virginia (Minn.). “I’m kind of just in awe of that, hoping that each person will be able to go out in their areas and communities and be able to bring Christ to them in a new, exciting way.” 

Father Thomas Galarneault, a priest serving in the Brainerd area, said, “It’s beautiful. It’s great to see so many people just loving the Lord.” He said it just “builds you up” to encounter that. He compared it to a shot of espresso, “but it’s like an espresso that’s going to last, because it’s Jesus.” 

For Don Krause, from Baudette, a high point came the first night. “I’m overwhelmed,” he said. “Last night, at the hour of adoration, it was an experience that I hadn’t felt since I was a youth.” 

He said the prayers had asked Jesus to be there for us but that he was afraid to open his eyes, “because I was afraid that he wasn’t going to be there.” 

He said he heard a “voice in the back of my head” asking why he hadn’t opened his eyes, so he did. 

“And I did not see him in the monstrance, and I had a moment of doubt,” Krause said. “He said I’m more than in the monstrance. Look around you. And he said I’m in that man, kneeling, right beside you. I’m in that woman that’s over there at the edge of the table. I’m right behind you. 

“And I felt awakened.”