Ireland's Eucharistic Congress, 2012

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Ireland's Eucharistic Congress, 2012

Time is ticking down to this year's International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, Ireland. Fr. Kevin Doran Secretary General, IEC 2012:“The Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of God's people - mainly Catholics, but not exclusively so - from all over the world, who come together to celebrate the Eucharist. But, it's not just about the celebration of the Eucharist, it's also about deepening our understanding of the Eucharist and about what the implications are for our lives as Christians in the world: so the whole issue of social justice and mutual love and service all tie into the Eucharistic Congress which is where the workshop program comes in.”The Congress is celebrated every four years. This year will mark its 50th edition.20,000 people are expected per day for the June 10th to 17th events. There will be daily Eucharistic celebrations, workshops, prayer meetings and encounters with up to 2,000 young people. To raise awareness, organizers are also sponsoring what's called a "bell pilgrimage".Fr. Kevin Doran: “We wanted to invite people into a deeper participation in the preparation of the Congress, and we decided to use as a symbol a bell, which traditionally is the invitation to prayer, the invitation to the Eucharist. And, we borrowed the bell from a community of Dominican sisters. Their traditional old college had closed down and the bell was no longer in use, so we fitted it into a wooden frame, and we started out on St. Patrick's Day a year ago, accompanied by four icons, which represent four elements of the Eucharist we're trying to get people to reflect on. The notion of assembly, Christ's presence in the word, the breaking of bread and then the mission at the end of the Eucharist, which is really about saying, well the Mass has ended, but the communion has not.”And, they're calling all interested parties to be in Dublin this June. Fr. Kevin Doran: “Why should people come? Well, I suppose there are two sides to that. People come to receive the fruits of the Congress, both the liturgy and the inputs, in terms of workshops and so on. But, the other thing is that through gathering together, people form a community, they enter into solidarity with one another and there are times when that is particularly important, and we would feel in Ireland that the Church is challenged to renew itself in all sorts of different ways, and the part of the energy for that renewal will come from the sense that we are not actually on our own, that we're part of something much bigger than ourselves.You know, the situation in Ireland at the moment, ecclesially and economically, is challenging but it has been and is the same in a lot of other parts of the world and I think we draw strength from all the people coming.”