Biblical scholar Mary Healy says Sydney should prepare for the “immense spiritual power” of the 2028 International Eucharistic Congress. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
Dr Healy gave one of the first public lectures on the theme for the 2028 International Eucharistic Congress (Eucharist28), “This is My Body, Given For You”, at the Scholarship at the Cathedral on June 16.
Dr Healy, a prominent biblical scholar whose works on the Gospel of St Mark and the Book of Genesis have garnered widespread acclaim, began by expressing her excitement to see how Sydney, and Australia more broadly, will journey in the lead up to, and after, Eucharist28.
“We had ours in the US two years ago, and it was dynamic, and the impact of that event is still reverberating now across the country, so get ready for the immense spiritual power of that event,” Dr Healy.
A key point throughout the evening was the power of the Eucharist.
“Most of us have been going to Mass for years, probably, and it’s so easy to get used to it without necessarily thinking about what’s actually happening right in front of us,” Dr Healy said.
“What happens is Heaven comes down to us, a divine love which saw the Son of God take our human flesh, become one of us and die for us on the cross comes to us, packaged in a little, plain, unobtrusive, innocuous looking piece of bread, because he said, ‘This is my body, given up for you.’”
Dr Healy also drew upon her personal experience of receiving the divine, Eucharistic love of Christ.
“At one stage in my life, I was serving a ministry in the Church, and it was a difficult time, I felt I was being pulled in all directions by so many people, and in frustration, I turned to the Lord one day and said, ‘Lord, I feel like I’m being chopped up into a million pieces,’” she said.
“It suddenly hit me that if I tried to meet all those needs, complaints and incidents, I was heading for not just a physical burnout, but a spiritual one too, and in that moment, I knew that if I let Him be first in my life, and I kept handing over the little paltry strength I had to Him, I wouldn’t burn out.
“Sometimes, living the Eucharistic life is being willing to pay the ultimate price, the way Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice on the Cross.”
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Dr Mary Healy continues Australian tour, speaks on Eucharist28 theme in latest Scholarship at the Cathedral (By Alex Woolnough, The Catholic Weekly)
