I am so excited about last week’s announcement that Sydney will be hosting the International Eucharistic Congress in 2028. As I have written previously. World Youth Day in Sydney completely changed the course of my life and the IEC will be 20 years, a whole generation, since that wonderful event in July of 2008.
It wasn’t just about the week itself, which went by in a blur of chaos and exhaustion, but the years of preparation. Because we were united on a common project, staff and volunteers formed lasting friendships. Some of the volunteers whom I met in 2006 as the preparations for World Youth Day got underway are among my closest and dearest friends today, 18 years after we first met.
My biggest hope is that the IEC will do the same for a new generation of Catholics; that young Catholics now in their teens or early 20s who were way too young for World Youth Day Sydney will get to experience something of the wonder and excitement we did when we were their age. So many in that age group are already very committed to the practice and knowledge of their faith, and I am certain the IEC will reinforce that commitment.
What’s more, the IEC isn’t only, or even primarily, for young people. It is for the whole church and so it is not just for my generation and the one or two younger than me; it will also be a source of renewal and inspiration for the generation or two older than me as well.
Another hope I have for the IEC is that it will truly turn our attention towards the Eucharist, the source and summit of the Catholic faith. It will mean that everything we do in the next four years will be ordered towards a deepening of our knowledge of, and love for, Christ truly and substantially present in the form of bread and wine.
Every liturgy, every sacramental program, every retreat or event or initiative should be preceded with the question, “How can we do this in a way that will intentionally draw people closer to Christ in the Eucharist?”
I also hope it will be an opportunity to see synodality in action. Synodality is more than a seemingly never-ending cycle of roundtable consultations and synthesis reports. It is supposed to point us towards mission. The question asked in the first session of the Synod on Synodality was: “How does a synodal church describe itself?” The question for the second session, which begins this week in Rome, is “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
If the synodal process the Church has been on in recent years is going to bear fruit, then it will have to do so through a Eucharistic and missionary lens, and so having an event like the IEC to road test how much Australia has learned in this process will be wonderful.
I have heard a few people suggest that the IEC might be a bit much; that we should focus our time and resources on renewing parish life and smaller ministries rather than big events. I understand that critique, but this isn’t an either/or. Like all good Catholic things, it is a both/and. The big events are often an entry point for either those who have stopped the practice of the faith, or those who are practising but need a bit of a push to involve themselves further in study or service or something else.
As I look around at the group with whom I connected during World Youth Day 2008, I don’t only see priests who entered seminary or religious sisters who entered the convent after WYD, but also wonderful married couples, people volunteering as catechists in their local public schools or working as religion teachers in Catholic schools, those who are now sacramental coordinators in their parishes, or assisting in youth or music ministry, or running Bible studies and more. Maybe they would have done this without World Youth Day as an impetus, but maybe it was just the encouragement they needed. Far from diverting resources away from our parishes, my hope is that the IEC will actually send people flooding to them, sleeves rolled up and ready to get to work.
I don’t know what God has planned for Sydney in the four years leading up to the International Eucharistic Congress, nor in the decades that will follow. But I know he will work miracles. And I can’t wait.