By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

PLANTATION | South Florida parish leaders expressed concern this month that Catholic church attendance is diminished following the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, which interrupted daily life and forced church services worldwide to go virtual for extended periods.

That observation was part of a public exchange heard March 16, 2024, at St. Gregory the Great Church in Plantation during a National Eucharistic Revival Summit.

 

The event convened parish leaders in the Archdiocese of Miami along with other guests who came for an afternoon of keynote conversations, sharing, an outdoor rosary pilgrimage and closing Mass with Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski.

“I have seen the attendance is down since Covid. We were closed for months at a time, and when we started back up some people were excited and some were afraid to come back,” said Nancy McKee, a member of St. Louis Parish in Pinecrest, and a parish representative to the summit.

One 2022 study from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate showed a 7% decline in adult Catholics attending Sunday Mass compared with pre-Covid data.

“I think some of the elderly are still afraid to come back, and I think the kids found other things to do, and are busy on weekends and busy with soccer games and what not, and it is hard to fit Mass (in),” McKee told the Florida Catholic, adding that she is trying to make sure St. Louis Parish is on track to help get attendance up.

“St. Louis is a pretty active church but it would be nice to have more people,” she said, adding that the community has been holding outdoor Stations of the Cross during Lent and is considering a eucharistic procession for the feast of Corpus Christi.

“A (eucharistic) procession through the neighborhood would be lovely, and it is easy for us to do because it is a residential (area). To wake up the neighborhood would be a nice thing,” McKee added.

Catholic bishops of the United States launched a Eucharistic Revival on the feast of Corpus Christi, June 19, 2022, in response to a growing concern about Catholic weekly Mass attendance and the results of the Pew study which suggested a majority of Catholics do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

The bishops also recently launched resources as part of the “Invite One Back” initiative, equipping clergy and parish leaders to invite those who have stopped attending Sunday Mass to fill the pews once again.

Some of those on hand in Plantation, including McKee, said they also plan to attend the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis July 17-21, 2024. Some 80,000 Catholics from around the country will gather where the Indianapolis 500 takes place.

The Miami archdiocese has assembled an official delegation of some 25 parish representatives to attend the event together on pilgrimage with Archbishop Thomas Wenski, and others may attend privately.

Parish representative Claudia Bailly from Our Lady of Guadalupe in Doral told the gathering in Plantation that her parish has been hosting visiting priest-speakers, a bilingual calendar of events, and outdoor Stations of the Cross during Lent.

The Doral parish also gathered 300 people early in the morning March 16 at Morgan Levy Park for a public eucharistic procession.

“In the morning a lot of people walk there for health reasons, to clear their minds and pray and we saw in the distance a man who saw us and then got down on his knees to pray,” Bailly said.

“He saw the Blessed Sacrament, and by the time we got to him he was crying and he was shaking — everyone gathered around him and prayed over him, so it's very powerful,” Bailly told the summit attendees.

Parish representative Patti Foo, from St. Edward in Pembroke Pines, told the summit attendees that her church has engaged some 200 people in a Jesus and the Eucharist video series being shown at the church while another 100 people or so are meeting in small groups in private homes.

“So we have about 320 people and it is still growing, and is a blessing to our church,” Foo said.

The Jesus and the Eucharist video series is a production of the U.S. bishops, said  Stephen Colella, Cabinet Secretary of Evangelization and Parish Life in the archdiocese.

The National Eucharistic Congress, in partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Augustine Institute, has released a seven-part video series to help parishes nationwide launch small group communities to grow in faith and love for the Eucharist.

“It really does work — to have 200 parishioners respond live and another 120 in home groups is beautiful,” Colella said, in response to the activities at St. Edward Parish.

He added that the Eucharistic Revival is having an impact both inside the church as well as outside in the wider community.

“That is the kind of stuff we want to do to get the formation ready and get everybody facing the same direction, praying for this revival, this renewal,” Colella said.

Sister Alyssa Renee Eaton, of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who serves at St. Agnes Parish in Key Biscayne, told the summit attendees that her parish recently convened all its ministry leaders for a Eucharistic Revival workshop to share ideas on how to bring the Eucharist into other ministries.

During a closing Mass following the summit, Archbishop Wenski said in his homily that Catholics receive Communion “so that becoming whom we receive we go out into the world to witness to the Gospel by sharing with the world what we have received.”

“Our participation at Mass — and our reception of Holy Communion — is not something private. Holy Communion is not just about ‘me and Jesus.’ We were baptized so that we could participate in the eucharistic banquet – and this banquet is a foretaste of the Eternal banquet of heaven when God will seat us at table with himself.”

Other speakers included Sister Rachel Mariana, also a Servants of the Pierced Hearts, who teaches at Blessed Trinity School in Virginia Gardens, who suggested the lives of the saints offer a roadmap for the Eucharistic Revival; and Paul Albert, a Haitian American from Boston who serves as director of Missions for Life Teen, a national Catholic youth ministry.

To learn more about the Eucharistic Revival see: www.eucharisticrevival.org/