The Eucharist: God’s Greatest Gift
Putting Jesus at the center: Bloomington parish experiences fruits of a decade-long eucharistic revival
Augie and Gabi Bigot, married last December, are graduates of Indiana University in Bloomington who had their faith renewed at St. Paul Catholic Center during a eucharistic revival that’s been going on in the parish during the past 10 years. (Submitted photo)
By Sean Gallagher
Tens of thousands of Catholics from across the United States are expected to take part in the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis on July 17-21.
The event promises to be the culminating event of the National Eucharistic Revival, launched in 2022 with the goal of renewing the life of the Church in the U.S. through deepening Catholics’ relationship with Christ in the Eucharist.
A parish that has already embraced that goal is St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington, which primarily serves Catholic students at Indiana University (IU).
“We made a conscious decision to put Jesus Christ at the center of it,” says Dominican Father Patrick Hyde, St. Paul’s pastor. “And Jesus comes to us primarily in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.”
The parish’s revival, 10 years in the making with that emphasis on the Eucharist, has led to several transformative results.
More than 20 IU graduates have served as missionaries for the Fellowship of Catholic University students (FOCUS). At least a dozen graduates have become seminarians or entered religious life. And just in the past year, Father Patrick officiated at 11 weddings of IU alumni.
“For me, the most rewarding part is to see that what we gave them here was something that could feed them forever,” he said. “To see the myriad ways that they’re living out their faith in participation in parishes, in young adult ministries, in working for the Church, as professionals, as husbands, wives, mothers and fathers is the really neat part.”
The eucharistic revival that’s taken place at St. Paul, Father Patrick added, is something that he believes can happen anywhere—at urban, suburban and rural parishes of any size.
“If you make that generous gift of self and time and effort for the Lord, he will never be outdone in generosity,” he said. “The beautiful thing about the eucharistic revival is that the Lord is not calling an inner-city parish to have the same kind of revival as a Newman center or a rural parish.”
Receiving and sharing the Eucharist
When the staff at St. Paul sought a decade ago to put Christ at the center of an attempt to renew its campus ministry, it began this effort by making the Mass, eucharistic adoration and the sacrament of penance more available for IU students.
The purpose of the revival at St. Paul was ultimately to renew the faith of IU students, to form “young men and women to have their own eucharistic renewal and revival, a conversion of heart, mind and life to Christ,” said Father Patrick.
Jackie Parkes experienced such a conversion when she was a student at IU from 2016-20.
That power of a relationship with Christ in the Eucharist washed over her in the June after her freshman year on the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, traditionally known as Corpus Christi. That’s when the fact hit her that the Church’s belief in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist “wasn’t just some random teaching that someone made up.
“Jesus himself taught it,” she said. “If this is true, this will radically change our lives. If Jesus himself was here, we would be filling football stadiums. People would be camping out. People would be traveling to come and see Jesus in the flesh, in person.”
This led her to “wrestle with the question of how my time could best be spent.” As a college student, many demands were made on her time, and countless opportunities for both fun and personal growth abounded. But Parkes’ experience of Christ in the Eucharist focused her use of her time like a laser.
“My time was best spent growing in relationship with the Lord, particularly through the Eucharist,” she recalled. “He was giving himself fully to me in the Eucharist and I wanted to receive that.
“And I wanted to help other people do the same, to understand the truth and reality of Jesus’ full presence in the Eucharist. If I’ve been given this great gift, I wanted that for other people, too.”
Other people at St. Paul were experiencing that draw to Christ. During her time at IU, Parkes noticed attendance at the parish’s mid-day Mass increase from a handful of worshippers to dozens, “and, on a good day, closer to 100 people.”
‘To know and love Jesus as a person’
Since graduating from IU in 2020, Parkes has served as a FOCUS missionary for the past four years in Wisconsin, following in the footsteps of FOCUS missionaries who mentored in the faith at IU. Later this summer, she will go to work as a regional program director for FOCUS at its Denver headquarters.
And she’s not alone in experiencing the transformative power of the Eucharist at St. Paul.
Augie and Gabi Bigot are starting to explore how their Catholic faith, which was deepened at St. Paul, will shape their lives as spouses.
Married last December at St. Alphonsus Liguori Parish in Zionsville, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese, Gabi is currently a medical student at Marian University in Indianapolis, while Augie works as a business information technology consultant.
Gabi, who graduated from IU a year ago, was attracted to spending time at St. Paul in her freshman year because of students she met there, but also because of the power of Christ’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament in eucharistic adoration.
“I knew that that was where truth was and where Christ was,” she said.
Augie, who had been active in his faith while growing up in Carmel, Ind., still “felt like something was missing” when he went to IU. Getting involved at St. Paul and opening himself to the Mass, eucharistic adoration, Bible studies and retreats helped him realize that what had been missing was an understanding of the purpose of it all, which he discovered was “to know and love Jesus as a person, because he is one.”
Focusing on this relationship with Christ led Augie to him in the Eucharist.
“Jesus knew that to be really good friends you have to see each other, so he physically brings himself to me and everyone under the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist,” he said. “But because I knew him who loves us so, he invited me to reach out to others and share that same love with them.”
The love he experienced in Christ he shared in a special way with Gabi, whom he met when they were both IU students.
They realized early on that their relationship might be important to them both, so they took it to prayer.
“At the end of a 54-day novena, we were like, ‘Yep, we’re supposed to be together,’ ” recalled Gabi.
Seeking God’s guidance was important to Gabi because of the eucharistic revival she experienced at St. Paul through adoration and daily Mass.
“There was an abundance of peace that I had never had before in my life,” she said. “My complete viewpoint on how I look at daily living really changed. My days became, ‘How does God want me to live today?’ instead of, ‘What’s my to-do list?’ What am I actually supposed to be doing to glorify God and not necessarily what I think is the right thing to be doing?”
The faith that Augie and Gabi share, centered on a love for Christ in the Eucharist that was deepened in them at St. Paul, is now at the heart of their marriage.
“I thank God every day for the wonderful gift of my wife and recognize that he put Gabi in my life to help me grow closer to him, but also put me in her life to help her grow closer to him,” Augie said. “However easy it is to lose sight of him amidst the craziness of daily life, we want to strive to keep him at the middle of everything.
“I’m quite of the opinion that if we can spend our time and energy working on that, he can take care of the rest.”
Being one with Christ in the Eucharist
Although St. Paul is a parish primarily focused on college campus ministry, Father Patrick said that the eucharistic revival it has experienced during the past decade can happen at parishes of all sizes in big cities and small towns.
What’s key, though, is for parish leaders to avoid responding to proposed changes in ministry with “We’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work” or “That’s just not how we do things.”
“If we continue down the path that we have been following for the past 30 to 40 years in terms of young Catholics leaving the Church and us continuing the same programs that [haven’t] stemmed that tide, then we’re, in a sense, signing our own death warrant,” Father Patrick said. “If we’re going to go out, let’s go out boldly and courageously.”
Starting a eucharistic revival in parishes can involve adding the Eucharist to programs already happening. But it takes determination and sacrifice to do that, Father Patrick said.
“We’re holding everyone to a higher standard,” he said. “Are we willing to spend time together as a parish pastoral council praying before the Blessed Sacrament for 15 to 30 minutes before we have a meeting?”
While aspects of a eucharistic revival in parishes can vary from community to community, Father Patrick is certain it can happen because of Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist that he offers to all.
“The Lord is calling us to be one with him and become one with him in his body in the realities that we face,” Father Patrick said. “This is the gift that he offers to the whole Church in all times and in all places.” †
