By DAWN PROSSER Director of Communications Following a powerful experience at the July 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, leadership from Lake City Our Lady of the Plains Parish are energized to begin the Year of Mission at home.
Father Brian Feller, pastor, and Sandra Hildreth, director of religious education, shared their experiences with the congress and their plans to move forward with the Eucharistic Revival’s Year of Mission with diocesan faith formation leaders via video conferencing last week. They described how the event energized their desire to evangelize at the parish, which includes churches in Lake City, Manson and Rockwell City.
The Congress The priest explained he was encouraged by Father Lynn Bruch, previous pastor, to consider attending the congress. The parish had hoped to encourage a group from the area to attend but didn’t generate much interest. However, he and Hildreth and Diane Wernimont of Auburn were able to join a group departing from Sioux City by bus.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’m sure glad I got on board that bus,” Father Feller said.
The priest described the opening night as “electric” because of the excitement from the tens of thousands of people in attendance.
“What was really special was adoration that first night and to have a stadium of people become silent. Then a light spotlights Bishop Andrew Cozzens (of the Crookston Diocese, head of the Eucharistic Revival) processing in with the monstrance and placing the Lord on the altar to begin the congress … it’s the first time in 83 years that we’ve done this in the U.S.,” Father Feller explained.
The congress offered talks geared for different audiences during the day and a keynote speaker in the evenings. Father Feller participated in the priest-centered talks.
“They had topics pertinent to priesthood, especially looking at the spirituality of priests and persevering through difficulties and staying close to the Lord in the Eucharist and being fathers in a parish,” the priest said.
Hildreth said she attended sessions geared for laity interested in implementing revival efforts in their own parishes. Click the image to see the the presentation with Hildreth and Father Feller ‘Go out there.’ As the event was centered on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the pastor said there was a directive to evangelize at home after the congress concluded.
“One of the big movements of the Eucharistic Congress was, yes, Jesus is really present in the Blessed Sacrament. Because he is present, we are called to offer ourselves with him,” he said. “We are all gifts to be offered in our apostolic work, not just the real presence of Jesus but we are called to be really present to Jesus in his paschal mystery. Therefore, Cardinal (Luis) Tagle (congress speaker from the Vatican) told us we ‘had to go.’ We had to go out there to the mission.”
Hildreth said she was focused on learning more at the congress to help her in her parish ministry. Her job has expanded from part-time DRE to a full time position to include adult faith formation.
“In looking back on it I was looking for permission to look at things a little bit differently. Our church tends to be a lot more traditional and definitely this is the way we’ve done it for a long time,” she explained. “I feel like I got permission that we can try new things. We can step out of what we are doing."
She said she spent time exploring the offerings from the vendors at the congress and talked to “everybody that did anything in the Catholic world.” She was in search of ways to engage parishioners, including young Catholics.
Returning home to Our Lady of the Plains Parish, the pastor, Hildreth and Wernimont shared their experiences after Masses in the three churches. They also encouraged parishioners to attend the September Christ our Life Conference in Des Moines. Resources The spirit of the revival is also brought back to the parish through a newly-implemented Jesus and the Eucharist small group series available at no cost to parishes. (click here to learn more)
“I didn’t know what was out there as far as resources. They had a Jesus in the Eucharist study last year. Our church didn’t do it. We are doing it as a staff now,” she said, pointing out it will be offered in the three parish churches this month. “It is a positive way for us to share our experiences and bring those people with us.”
The Jesus in the Eucharist series is conducted in seven sessions and will be available to all the parishioners, which includes some of the congress speakers. The pastor said he is excited that 21 sessions will be offered throughout the parish.
The program includes prayer, video, Scripture and discussion questions. Father Feller pointed out the program also addresses “what they hear people talking about when they talk about the Catholic faith – the good, the bad and the difficulties. They address it well.”
“It’s nice to dialogue and talk in community with each other. That has a value amplified 10 times,100 times more than doing the session by yourself. We are meant to follow Jesus in community,” Father Feller said. “We have a lot of faith right here and we need to share it.”
Walking with one Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona spoke at the congress and asked the group to imagine how impactful it would be if all 70 million U.S. Catholics shared their faith with one person and that person lived the faith, Father Feller said. This introduced the revival’s Walk with One initiative.
“There was a challenge the next day to pick one person and be a messenger to them, walk with them and share the good news of the Eucharist,” the pastor said.
“I picked a family from each of our three (churches) that I have not seen engaged or in church recently for any number of reasons. Those are the three families I pray for and initiating conversations with. I’m at the beginning stage and wondering how do I help bring them back to the church?” Hildreth explained.
The two parish leaders explained it is important to actively invite individuals to life in the church rather than rely upon passive invitations such as bulletin notices, posters and social media posts.
“I would say, ‘Here, I will take your hand.’ Walk with someone to the meeting, do something with them,” the priest said.
“The power of asking them to come with me is so powerful. That’s a bigger indicator of getting anyone involved in parish life than anything else. If there’s someone new in the parish, I think who is connected to that person? Who can reach out to them? We want them to feel part of (the parish),” Hildreth stressed.
Engaging the next generation Hildreth said in reviewing resources provided by the National Eucharistic Revival, the topic of engaging young Catholics in parish life was discussed. She learned the average age of parish leadership team is 39, “which made people in the church uncomfortable. They thought they are too young or too old or this or that. That was a big of a challenge they said if we do not bring in others.”
The faith formation director said she saw it as a call to change in order to invite the next generation of Catholics to leadership roles in parishes. She said it’s common that people hold leadership positions for long periods of time. At the same time, churches wonder “how do we engage our young people?”
“They reflected on we have to have some people who are willing to step down and let other people do things,” she said. “We like to do everything ourselves and we can’t step away…We have to remember that we all have gifts to give but some of us may have to step away and let others do things differently than what we may have done.”