Basilica of the National Vow in Quito, Ecuador. / Credit: Jess Kraft/Shutterstock
ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 18, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
With less than a month to go until the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress (IEC 2024) in Quito, Ecuador, Father Juan Carlos Garzón, secretary-general for the event, said it will be an opportunity to “put the Eucharistic Christ at the center of the life of the Church and the world.”
In a statement to the Spanish edition of EWTN News, Garzón highlighted that IEC 2024 will be “like returning to the essence of our faith.” Ecuador was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus 150 years ago, the priest noted, so the Eucharistic Congress will also be a great opportunity for the country to commemorate that event and delve deeper into its history of faith.
Fifty-one delegations from around the world have already registered to participate in the IEC 2024 program, which will begin with an international theological symposium to be held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, where approximately 450 people will attend.
“Theologians from all over the world are coming to explore more deeply the relationship between the Eucharist and fraternity, given that the theme of our Eucharistic Congress is ‘Fraternity to Heal the World,’” the secretary-general said.
After the symposium, IEC 2024 will formally begin on Sept. 8. On that day, 1,600 children will make their first Communion. For Garzón, this will be a reminder of the purity with which we must receive the Lord in the Eucharist, “which can sometimes be lost over the years.”
“These children remind us of the purity that is part of this relationship with God,” he added.
Nearly 5,000 people will be present at the congress, including bishops, laypeople and religious, who will give their witness to fraternity. Those days in Quito, the secretary-general said, will allow us to learn about the different wounds afflicting the world and at the same time to make a contribution to healing them.
“It’s a very beautiful week. On the first day we have asked the bishops, who come from all over the world, to go to the parishes in Quito to meet with our people. Then, on Thursday of that week, Masses will be held in the [city’s] historic center in the various languages [of the participants], and on Saturday, Sept. 14, we will have a great Eucharistic procession,” Garzón explained.
The closing Mass, on Sept. 15, will be celebrated by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who will represent the pope during IEC 2024.
Finally, the secretary-general wanted people to know that they can still register for the event through the official IEC 2024 website.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Elon Musk, the CEO … […]
Fr. Richard Cassidy, professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, dresses in Roman prisoner garb as he holds a copy of his newest book, “A Roman Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.” Fr. Cassidy’s eighth scholarly work, the book explores the subversive nature of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, which the apostle wrote from behind bars in a Roman prison cell. / Valaurian Waller | Detroit Catholic
Detroit, Mich., Apr 30, 2022 / 08:00 am (CNA).
It was a tough decision for Rick Cassidy as he began graduate studies at the University of Michigan in mid-1960s. Would he take the course on Imperial Rome, because of his love of history, or the course History of Slavery, because of his deep concern for social justice?
The Dearborn native chose the course on slavery. The insights he acquired have helped to guide Fr. Richard Cassidy’s scholarly work for three decades, including his latest work, “A Roman Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians“ (Herder & Herder, 2020).
Paul’s letter, composed in chains and secreted out of his Roman jail cell, is intentionally “counter-slavery” argues Father Cassidy, professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary since 2004, as well as “counter-emperor.” At its core, Philippians is an underground epistle that subverts the Roman power structure and the “lordship pretensions of Nero.” Reviewers praise the “distinctive thesis” of Father’s groundbreaking work as “fresh and illuminating,” making for “fascinating reading.”
This is Father Cassidy’s seventh book that examines the influence of Roman rule on the writers of the New Testament, and his eighth book overall. He returned to Ann Arbor on a rainy afternoon in late June to discuss his newest work.
Dan Gallio: St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is most known for its soaring declaration of the divinity Christ, before whom one day “every knee must bend,” and “every tongue proclaim” his universal lordship (2:6-11).
Your new book presents a unique argument: Paul’s letter is primarily a “subversive” document of resistance against the Roman Empire—particularly against emperor worship and slavery. How did you arrive at this against-the-grain interpretation?
“A Roman Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians” (Herder & Herder, 2020) is Fr. Cassidy’s eighth book and a follow-up on his 2001 work, “Paul in Chains: Roman Imprisonment and the Letters of St. Paul”. Valaurian Waller | Detroit Catholic
Father Cassidy: These insights were the result of long hours with the text, spending a lot of prayer time for guidance, as to Paul’s situation.
The issue of slavery came into play strongly. I now saw that Jesus was executed as a violator of Roman sovereignty, condemned by Pilate, executed under Emperor Tiberius—and that this was the slave’s form of death. This is a crucial point.
In regards to the two topics you mention, I had the intuition that the Letter to the Philippians was “counter-emperor cult” and “counter-slavery.” First, the self emptying of Christ from on high—descending downward into human form, downward, downward to the point of the slave’s death on a Roman cross—and then you have St. Paul’s wonderful words in chapter 2, verses 9-11.
My insight was that there is going to be a redressing of what has happened. Because of the great faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the Father intervenes and begins the lifting up, the ascending of Christ, where the Father exalts Jesus and bestows upon him “the name above every other name.”
So I can now speak about this famous passage in terms of a kind of “drama”: four scenes that represent the descent of Jesus, and four scenes that represent his ascent, akin to a medieval passion play. The Father intervenes on Christ’s behalf, conferring upon him the name of “Lord.” Now all of creation, including the emperor, the governor, the imperial personnel, are all subject to Jesus. They have to prostrate themselves before the name of Jesus.
DG: So, essentially, Philippians is subversive because it makes a political statement as much as a theological one.
FC: Yes, but for some, it is a great privilege to genuflect at the name of Jesus. This includes slaves! Paul had integrated slaves into his community in Philippi. They were empowered now to proclaim the name of Jesus, standing alongside free men and women. They are standing alongside the Roman imperial power structure, all involved in the same process of bowing before Christ and proclaiming his name.
A security guard at Sacred Heart Major Seminary helps Fr. Cassidy don his “prisoner’s clothing” for a photo shoot promoting Fr. Cassidy’s latest book, “A Roman Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” which details Paul’s experience behind bars and the conditions under which he wrote his Letter to the Philippians. Valaurian Waller | Detroit Catholic
And that name is “Lord.” Jesus is being acclaimed as Lord, and not the emperor, to the glory of God the Father. This is the decisive element of Philippians 2:6-11, blended together in this one passage.
DG: You provide a forty-four-page introduction to the social situation of the Roman colony of Philippi. Why did you feel such an informative but lengthy introduction was necessary to support your thesis?
FC: I had to establish that conditions at Philippi mirror conditions at Rome. This is important. Philippi was like “Little Rome.” When Paul is speaking of conditions at Philippi, his is also experiencing the same oppressive conditions at Rome as a chained prisoner. I had to establish that emperor worship was everywhere, in Philippi’s renowned amphitheater, in the streets, in public artifacts. That is why I had to go into an extensive introduction to set the stage of what Paul is doing in his letter.
DG: Your appendices are extensive, too, like bookends to the introduction, driving the thesis home again using illustrations.
FC: There is one illustration of a monument where slaves are chained, and a slave trader is proclaiming his prowess as a slave trader. This monument to the degradation of slavery was at a city adjacent to Philippi. Paul almost certainly passed by it on his way to and from Philippi. It was discovered back in the 1930s and almost destroyed in the war by Nazi bombings.
DG: Paul is sometimes criticized by revisionist commentators for not rejecting the institution of slavery in his letters. Is your book an answer to these critics?
FC: Paul’s approach to slavery is complicated. There are some letters where he seems to envision the imminent return of Christ. Possibly he minimized the importance of slaves being freed in these letters. However, in Philippians, his final letter before his death, he addresses the issue definitively. It is very undermining of slavery.
I intended to de-establish the idea that Paul acquiesced to slavery. He did not acquiesce. The laudatory prepublication comments by scholars make me think the book will have a decisive role in re-imaging Paul.
Against a prevailing notion that St. Paul “acquiesced” to the idea of slavery in his writings, Fr. Cassidy’s book aims to counter the idea by showing how St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians actually served a subversive purpose in a Roman empire dominated by emperor worship and tight controls. Valaurian Waller | Detroit Catholic
DG: Back to Philippians 2:6-11. Why do you maintain this passage is not a hymn or baptismal catechesis, as is customarily believed, but is an original composition of Paul? Is this position another example of your counter exegesis?
FC: This is not some other preexisting hymn. No! This is fresh imaging. Visceral imaging. This is intensity from identifying with Christ as the “slave crucified.” No one else could have composed this passage. And Paul could not have composed this passage until he was in Roman chains and could see the threat posed against Jesus by the counterfeit claims that Emperor Nero is Lord.
DG: It’s almost like the passage is “supra-inspired,” that he would get such an original insight while in such dreadful circumstances.
FC: Correct. And there is a real question as to how this letter could be transmitted from prison, with the security and censorship. In garments? In pottery? It is possible the original written letter was confiscated. So how is Paul is getting his subversive thoughts past the Roman guards?
I suggest in my book that Paul was drilling his associates, Timothy and Epaphroditus, to memorize his letter, given the role of memory in early Christian life.
DG: With your busy teaching and pastoral duties, where to you find the motivation and energy to produce such a thoroughly researched, and beautifully written, work of scholarship?
FC: It’s Spirit driven!
DG: Is the Spirit driving you to another book?
FC: I would say so. After a book comes to publication, there is always a kind of mellowing period. So right now I have not identified the next project. I am appreciating the graces I have received from this book, and trusting that the same Spirit who has shepherded me through this sequence will still stand by me, guiding me forward.
We read of “Christ at the center of life in the world,” and “Theologians from all over the world are coming to explore more deeply the relationship between the Eucharist and fraternity…”
If St. Paul had not crossed over to Macedonia and the “world” of the reasonable Greek cosmos, would there ever have unfolded the coherence of faith and reason (the Logos) as is made possible by and in the Incarnation-event? Or, instead, would an unrelieved pluralism/profusion of alternatives remained totally dominant–ranging from the symbolic mystery religions infesting the late Roman Empire; to today’s rationalistic progressivism, or nihilism, or technocracy, or identify politics in the West; to the inscrutable, arbitrary, and even fatalistic fideism of Islam, from Morocco to Indonesia; together with all of the other expressive and sometimes purifying, but still only natural religions in the East and elsewhere?
Benedict remarks that the confluence of Christianity and Greek thought is an underappreciated and providential moment in universal human history. In John’s Gospel, the term Word captures the narrow path–by meaning revelation (the Mind of God) to the Jews and, translated as Logos in the Greek, meaning to the Greeks both word and Reason. As more than a conceptual bridge, the term Word/Logos stands for the fact of the incarnate divinity of Christ descending into the world and, therefore, the coherence of gifted faith in Him and our reasoning within our finite but confirmed minds.
Is there any durable coherence at all, in the long run, absent the Incarnation (and the gifted and sacramental Real Presence)?
The inborn and universal natural law (meaningful “fraternity”) confirmed and fulfilled in the self-disclosure of the Triune One. The Alpha and the Omega, also as the midpoint and the center of universal human history. (A lucid Protestant treatment of the Word/Logos is provided by the Scottish William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, “The Gospel of John.” vol. 1, Westminster Press, 1975, pp. 26-40).
So, yes, the International Eucharistic Congress presenting “Christ as the center of life in the world.”
To put the Eucharist Christ at the center of the Church and world is not a fetish that forms symbolic brotherhood, or as Pope Francis suggests the consumption of the miracle of the Eucharist saves. Rather it is to become like Christ in belief and manner. That’s the essence of our salvation and formation of brotherhood bonded in divinely revealed love. To receive the Holy Eucharist absent of contrition and willingness to become what we consume, actually offends who it is we receive and harms us spiritually.
Transubstantiation remains the clearest accurate diagram for explaining what occurs on the altar. That Christ is not present symbolically, nor is he in the bread and wine or under the two species. Both bread and wine become the real person, the whole person of Christ [different in appearance as he appears in his natural existence]. Greece gave us the concept of being. Better said, what Aristotle said exists are beings. Arab philosopher Ibn Sina quoted by Aquinas in De Veritate [On Truth] in the initial pages in his treatise confirmed what is first evident to the intellect is being [or beings not the metaphysical notion of being as being].
Ousia, the Gk word for substance, means an entity, an existing thing independent from other things. While the accidents of bread and wine remain the same at the priest’s words of consecration, the substance of both are changed to become the living Christ. What Aquinas called, although a mystery, a miracle of love. As the Apostles consumed him as the spoken Word and finally as the Eucharistic Word made flesh at the Last Supper, we receive him body and blood, soul and divinity through the gift conferred to the Apostles and passed on to us through their successors both bishop and presbyter. Brotherhood, true fraternity is achieved exclusively in the Eucharistic unity of the Mystical Body of Christ in the world and in heaven.
YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST 2008
“I AM THE LIVING BREAD” JOHN 6:51 – COMMUNION THANKSGIVING: THE DIVINE PRAISES
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His holy name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
Blessed be the holy name of Jesus Christ.
Blessed be His loving and sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Body and Blood.
Blessed be His passion and resurrection.
Blessed be Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Giver of life.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Blessed be Holy Mary, the Virgin Mother of God.
Blessed be her Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
Blessed be our God, always now and for ever and ever. Amen.
•This Thanksgiving prayer takes 1-2 minutes and fills in a glaring omission, that of thanking God for the great gift of the Holy Communion. There are prayers after Communion now, but they are still a ‘give us’ not a ‘thank you’ – eucharistia. What guest with what manners would rush out after a dinner without complimenting/thanking their host? The exposition of the Blessed Sacrament takes place par excellence at every Holy Communion. Can the Body and Blood of Our Lord be ever more exposed in this life than at Holy Communion?
•More important still, is to receive Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, worthily (1 Corinthians 11:28-29, Matthew 5:23, 6:15) – to be free, beforehand, from serious sin, to pray at least the biblical act of contrition, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy kingdom”, and to go to Confession when necessary.
•Rightly we complain about disrespect shown to the Blessed Sacrament. But what does shunting the tabernacle from its front-and-center location to the sidelines tell the Faithful? Towards what do we genuflect? Restoring the tabernacle with its perpetual candle to the middle of the altar area –its universal location for many centuries and still its location in some churches– would rectify the schism between the altar and the tabernacle and would showcase the Eucharist as the center of Church life. Also, an image of the Last Supper by the altar, such as the one at Saint Maximilian Kolbe church in Mississauga, the Consolata Missionaries’ chapel in Toronto and in many other Orthodox and Catholic churches, from Rio de Janeiro to Jerusalem, would call to mind the roots of the Eucharist.
Slavic Christian Society / Société Chrétienne Slave / Slăviansko Xristianskoe Sŏbranie, Mississauga, http://slavxrist.org 2000, 2004, 2008.
We read of “Christ at the center of life in the world,” and “Theologians from all over the world are coming to explore more deeply the relationship between the Eucharist and fraternity…”
If St. Paul had not crossed over to Macedonia and the “world” of the reasonable Greek cosmos, would there ever have unfolded the coherence of faith and reason (the Logos) as is made possible by and in the Incarnation-event? Or, instead, would an unrelieved pluralism/profusion of alternatives remained totally dominant–ranging from the symbolic mystery religions infesting the late Roman Empire; to today’s rationalistic progressivism, or nihilism, or technocracy, or identify politics in the West; to the inscrutable, arbitrary, and even fatalistic fideism of Islam, from Morocco to Indonesia; together with all of the other expressive and sometimes purifying, but still only natural religions in the East and elsewhere?
Benedict remarks that the confluence of Christianity and Greek thought is an underappreciated and providential moment in universal human history. In John’s Gospel, the term Word captures the narrow path–by meaning revelation (the Mind of God) to the Jews and, translated as Logos in the Greek, meaning to the Greeks both word and Reason. As more than a conceptual bridge, the term Word/Logos stands for the fact of the incarnate divinity of Christ descending into the world and, therefore, the coherence of gifted faith in Him and our reasoning within our finite but confirmed minds.
Is there any durable coherence at all, in the long run, absent the Incarnation (and the gifted and sacramental Real Presence)?
The inborn and universal natural law (meaningful “fraternity”) confirmed and fulfilled in the self-disclosure of the Triune One. The Alpha and the Omega, also as the midpoint and the center of universal human history. (A lucid Protestant treatment of the Word/Logos is provided by the Scottish William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, “The Gospel of John.” vol. 1, Westminster Press, 1975, pp. 26-40).
So, yes, the International Eucharistic Congress presenting “Christ as the center of life in the world.”
To put the Eucharist Christ at the center of the Church and world is not a fetish that forms symbolic brotherhood, or as Pope Francis suggests the consumption of the miracle of the Eucharist saves. Rather it is to become like Christ in belief and manner. That’s the essence of our salvation and formation of brotherhood bonded in divinely revealed love. To receive the Holy Eucharist absent of contrition and willingness to become what we consume, actually offends who it is we receive and harms us spiritually.
Transubstantiation remains the clearest accurate diagram for explaining what occurs on the altar. That Christ is not present symbolically, nor is he in the bread and wine or under the two species. Both bread and wine become the real person, the whole person of Christ [different in appearance as he appears in his natural existence]. Greece gave us the concept of being. Better said, what Aristotle said exists are beings. Arab philosopher Ibn Sina quoted by Aquinas in De Veritate [On Truth] in the initial pages in his treatise confirmed what is first evident to the intellect is being [or beings not the metaphysical notion of being as being].
Ousia, the Gk word for substance, means an entity, an existing thing independent from other things. While the accidents of bread and wine remain the same at the priest’s words of consecration, the substance of both are changed to become the living Christ. What Aquinas called, although a mystery, a miracle of love. As the Apostles consumed him as the spoken Word and finally as the Eucharistic Word made flesh at the Last Supper, we receive him body and blood, soul and divinity through the gift conferred to the Apostles and passed on to us through their successors both bishop and presbyter. Brotherhood, true fraternity is achieved exclusively in the Eucharistic unity of the Mystical Body of Christ in the world and in heaven.
YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST 2008
“I AM THE LIVING BREAD” JOHN 6:51 – COMMUNION THANKSGIVING: THE DIVINE PRAISES
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His holy name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
Blessed be the holy name of Jesus Christ.
Blessed be His loving and sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Body and Blood.
Blessed be His passion and resurrection.
Blessed be Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Giver of life.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Blessed be Holy Mary, the Virgin Mother of God.
Blessed be her Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
Blessed be our God, always now and for ever and ever. Amen.
•This Thanksgiving prayer takes 1-2 minutes and fills in a glaring omission, that of thanking God for the great gift of the Holy Communion. There are prayers after Communion now, but they are still a ‘give us’ not a ‘thank you’ – eucharistia. What guest with what manners would rush out after a dinner without complimenting/thanking their host? The exposition of the Blessed Sacrament takes place par excellence at every Holy Communion. Can the Body and Blood of Our Lord be ever more exposed in this life than at Holy Communion?
•More important still, is to receive Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, worthily (1 Corinthians 11:28-29, Matthew 5:23, 6:15) – to be free, beforehand, from serious sin, to pray at least the biblical act of contrition, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy kingdom”, and to go to Confession when necessary.
•Rightly we complain about disrespect shown to the Blessed Sacrament. But what does shunting the tabernacle from its front-and-center location to the sidelines tell the Faithful? Towards what do we genuflect? Restoring the tabernacle with its perpetual candle to the middle of the altar area –its universal location for many centuries and still its location in some churches– would rectify the schism between the altar and the tabernacle and would showcase the Eucharist as the center of Church life. Also, an image of the Last Supper by the altar, such as the one at Saint Maximilian Kolbe church in Mississauga, the Consolata Missionaries’ chapel in Toronto and in many other Orthodox and Catholic churches, from Rio de Janeiro to Jerusalem, would call to mind the roots of the Eucharist.
Slavic Christian Society / Société Chrétienne Slave / Slăviansko Xristianskoe Sŏbranie, Mississauga, http://slavxrist.org 2000, 2004, 2008.
Never heard of the Slavic Christian Society.
Have now!