Pray with us!

We consider a special gift of God that we have the opportunity to organize the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress in 2020 in Budapest. We can celebrate Jesus in the Eucharist, we can remember his faithfulness and express our hope in him. We are preparing for the celebration of the Congress by saying this prayer in our churches week after week. Our desire is to get closer to the mystery of the Eucharist as individuals and as a community, and to be attuned to the gift of grace which Jesus prepares for us, for our nation, for Europe and for the word through the celebration of the Congress.

The prayer calls us to prepare the way for the Lord with deep spirituality and active love.

"Heavenly Father, source of all life!
Send us your Holy Spirit,
that we may recognize
and grow in the love of Christ present in the Eucharist,
who handed himself over for us!"

The Heavenly Father is the source of all life. The Triune God's life's dynamics is provided by the momentum of love. Love is an inner force and an engagement, which makes us hand ourselves over and become one with the loved one. Love is strength, love is engagement, attention, tenderness and benevolence.

We don't have a technical equipment which could help us to perceive the interior life of God. However, when we feel deep and true love, somehow we might experience the reality and the life of God: his creative, liberating, caring love.

Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist is the real heaven among us. Under the appearances of bread and wine he invites us to enter into the life of the Holy Trinity. We don't have a technical equipment on earth to perceive "God's heartbeat". There is much more here: Himself.

Contemplating Christ present in the Eucharist we discover how is someone who loves. Remaining completely himself, while his divine reality is hidden under the appearances of bread and wine. He is able to be simple. He makes himself available. He has the courage to give himself to others. He is making sacrifices. He is able to undertake his fragility and smallness. He accomplishes his power and dignity by giving freedom to the other person: exposes himself to love.

"He is our Lord and our Master,
our friend and our food,
our healer and our peace.
Give us the courage to take his strength and
his joy to every person!"

We confess Jesus Our Lord, Our God, he is Our Master. He is a person who has the majesty and the dignity which can help us to find the way of love and life. When we contemplate and receive him in the Eucharist, he wants to form and shape us himself.

He is a friend for us, deeply knowing our human reality. Nothing of the humans is unfamiliar to him. That is why we can turn to him with confidence in any situation. He is a friend, who encourages us and sometimes confronts us with our weaknesses which we should change or improve. During the quiet times spent with him - during the Eucharistic adorations - two friends spend their time together. Once one of us is speaking, the other time the other. Sometimes we are quiet. We are looking at each other. We are listening to each other. When friends encounter sometimes big things happen, other times it is only about being together. On occasion, difficult or painful things arise in us during an adoration - or a friendly meeting.

Jesus isn't scared of our pains and infirmities. Jesus present is the Eucharist is our healer.He wants to heal our fears, our deepest concerns. He is true God and true man. He is the only one who is able to heal the anxieties arising from our finiteness, our concerns over losses and our pains caused by decay. In the presence of the Eucharist we find ourselves in the reality of the eternal Love. This experience has a healing power.

Jesus in the Eucharist is our food and our peace. When we receive the Eucharist, Jesus enters in our soul and our body in flesh and blood. He comes to us, who died and rose again for us. And he says in a personal way inside of us: Peace be with you! And we might say like the earliest disciples - Mary Magdalene and Apostle Thomas: "We have seen, we have touched, we have sensed the Lord!".

Love makes us to be together, to become one with the loved one. At the same time it is a surprise. In a true loving relationship there is a lot more than we would think or hope. Love goes beyond the loving relationship itself. It leads further, enlarges, it is full of patience and if necessary it forgives. We need courage to move on starting from the experience of spiritual intimacy. That is why we ask the Father to encourage us by His Holy Spirit, to share the joy experienced with Jesus with others.

"Grant us, that the time of the preparation
and the celebration of the Eucharistic Congress
would serve the spiritual renewal
of our community, cities, nation,
Europe and the world."

The celebration of the Eucharist integrates the whole world in the holy presence of God. Jesus identifies himself with simple and natural material things: with the bread, fruit of the earth, and the wine, fruit oh the vine. Both of them require the work of human hands, toil and care. In the celebration of the Holy Mass the ordained priest takes these created things into his hands, and these transform into the Body and Blood of Jesus. The ministry of priests principally lies in uniting the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Jesus and in sanctifying the people (cf. CCC 1566). The priestly ministry enhances the communion, the loving relationship between God and humans.

Through the common priesthood all Christians are called to strive for the sanctification of the world. The priest takes the bread and the wine in his hands and offers them to God. Christians' vocation is to raise to God everything what is entrusted to them in the created world. The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19), because the whole creation is called to shine through the holiness of the presence of God. When we pray for the spiritual renewal of our community, cities, nation, Europe and the world we have a sense of the responsibility for the world we live in.

At this point the vocal prayer finishes. The prayer follows the logic of the Eucharist, it gives us a mission: step out of our internal spiritual room, leave our churches, and seek in our world where God's sanctifying presence is needed. Let's notice how the creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God, and where active love and the acts of mercy are needed the most.

Beáta Mária Versegi CB