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13: Fed By Christ - with Father Dennis Miller and Deacon Dan Hoeger
2 Plays1 year ago
On June 8th 2024, the Cedar Rapids Deanery will be hosting a Eucharistic Revival event at Xavier High School called "Fed By Christ." Father Dennis Miller and Deacon Dan Hoeger, our guests for this episode, share about the collaboration and inspiration for this event and what Eucharistic Adoration means to them.
The website and resources referenced can be found here:
REGISTRATION: https://www.iccr.church/fed-by-christ
https://dbqarch.org/archdiocesan-eucharistic-revival
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, my name is Father Jacob Rouse, and I am the pastor of Notre Dame Parish in Cresco, Iowa.
00:00:21
Speaker
And we are here once again for the DeBucharistic Revival Podcast.
00:00:26
Speaker
Because that's the name we're going with.
00:00:28
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:29
Speaker
That voice you're hearing right now is my co-host and brother priest, Father Kevin.
00:00:33
Speaker
Father Kevin, can you introduce yourself, where you serve, and what your home parish is?
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello, I'm Father Kevin Earlywine, co-host of this podcast.
00:00:42
Speaker
Glad to be here.
00:00:44
Speaker
I am pastor of St.
00:00:45
Speaker
Patrick's Catholic Church in Hampton, Iowa, and St.
00:00:48
Speaker
Mary's in Ackley.
00:00:50
Speaker
My home parish is I'm actually from, not from this diocese originally, I'm actually from southern Wisconsin in the Madison Diocese, and my parish I grew up in was St.
00:01:00
Speaker
Rose of Lima in Broadhead, Wisconsin.
00:01:04
Speaker
Broadhead, Wisconsin is your hometown?
00:01:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:07
Speaker
Well, that's cool.
00:01:07
Speaker
Well, I'm glad you wandered your way to the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
00:01:11
Speaker
We're much better for having you.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:14
Speaker
I made my way over the river.
00:01:16
Speaker
So yeah, very good.
00:01:17
Speaker
You to get here.
00:01:18
Speaker
So, um, and your home parish.
00:01:21
Speaker
Oh yes.
00:01:22
Speaker
My home parish is St.
00:01:23
Speaker
Patrick's in Cedar Rapids right on first Avenue.
00:01:27
Speaker
And it's actually a coincidence that, um, our two guests today, uh, serve at
Meet the Clergy
00:01:32
Speaker
St.
00:01:32
Speaker
Patrick's.
00:01:32
Speaker
So, uh, father Dennis and, uh, Deacon Dan, uh, could you introduce yourselves?
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm Deacon Dan Hager, uh, here at St.
00:01:40
Speaker
Patrick's.
00:01:41
Speaker
I've been, uh,
00:01:43
Speaker
ordained in 89.
00:01:45
Speaker
So I've been serving here ever since.
00:01:49
Speaker
I'm not I'm not an original from St.
00:01:52
Speaker
Pat's.
00:01:52
Speaker
I came here in 67, but there's not enough people around to know any different anymore.
00:01:58
Speaker
They have to claim me.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:01
Speaker
Wow.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
And I am Father Dennis Miller.
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm just about ready to complete my second year here at St.
00:02:10
Speaker
Patrick's in Cedar Rapids.
00:02:12
Speaker
I've been a priest for 22 years, and I've been assigned to 22 different parishes in the 22 years that I've been a priest, so I'm not going to go through them all.
00:02:22
Speaker
But I'm originally from Marshalltown, Iowa, and St.
00:02:25
Speaker
Mary Parish, even though now it's St.
00:02:28
Speaker
Francis of Assisi Parish, combined the two parishes into one, but I was originally from St.
00:02:36
Speaker
Mary Parish.
00:02:38
Speaker
Wow.
00:02:38
Speaker
You've had 22 assignments in 22 years?
00:02:40
Speaker
I've had seven assignments involving 22 parishes.
00:02:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:44
Speaker
All right.
00:02:44
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:02:45
Speaker
That's still got to be a record in someone's book, I think.
00:02:48
Speaker
I don't look forward to writing my obituary because I don't know how I'm going to include them all.
00:02:53
Speaker
Well, we'll print off a lot of papers for that.
00:02:56
Speaker
Either that or we'll leave him here until he retires.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, we can do that.
00:02:59
Speaker
He doesn't have that anymore.
00:03:00
Speaker
There you go.
00:03:01
Speaker
Simplify things.
00:03:02
Speaker
Also, fun fact, my father, who was on a previous episode, Deacon Dan Rouse, there's two Deacon Dans at St.
00:03:08
Speaker
Patrick's in Cedar Rapids.
00:03:10
Speaker
So I'm sure that gets confusing.
Planning the Eucharistic Event
00:03:13
Speaker
Anyway, we're here to talk about an event that we have coming up on June 8th.
00:03:19
Speaker
And our guests are overseeing it or planning it or here to talk about it.
00:03:25
Speaker
And so what is the event and how did it come about?
00:03:30
Speaker
So it really started with Father Dennis Conway.
00:03:34
Speaker
He was
00:03:36
Speaker
Dr. David Bowman, Jr.: noted that this time of Eucharistic revival that the church is engaging in, we really weren't doing anything to promote it for as an archdiocese.
00:03:47
Speaker
So he thought maybe as a deanery, we should do something and brought it to the deanery priests and the initial group was Father Conway, Father Greg Ball and myself.
00:03:59
Speaker
And we started thinking about what it could look like.
00:04:01
Speaker
I think that was about a year and a half ago and decided that we should have some kind of a national speaker, see if the archbishop would come.
00:04:09
Speaker
At the time, it was still Archbishop... Jekylls.
00:04:14
Speaker
Jekylls, thank you.
00:04:16
Speaker
I've already forgotten the poor man and he's not been gone that long.
00:04:19
Speaker
And so we were thinking of having him come to celebrate the mass and then just doing a few other things.
00:04:25
Speaker
And immediately we decided, you know, we need to get more people involved.
00:04:29
Speaker
So we got Deacon Dan Hager here and a few other folks to help with some more of the details.
00:04:38
Speaker
I don't know if I'm missing out on anything.
00:04:40
Speaker
It was brought before the deanery meeting with the clergy, and it was really well received by all the priests in the deanery.
00:04:48
Speaker
And so Father Dennis, and as he said, Father Dennis Conway and Father Greg Ball were the first ones to step forward and said,
00:04:57
Speaker
You know, we want to be on this committee and go from there.
00:05:01
Speaker
That's great.
00:05:03
Speaker
So there's two Dennis, Father Dennis's in the Cedar Rapids Deanery.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:07
Speaker
Oh, great.
00:05:08
Speaker
But that doesn't get confusing.
00:05:10
Speaker
It's the second most popular name for priests in the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
00:05:14
Speaker
I think, okay.
00:05:16
Speaker
First John and then Dennis.
00:05:18
Speaker
And for the benefit of our listeners, a deanery, as you know, every Catholic region is divided up in an archdiocese or a diocese.
00:05:27
Speaker
And the deaneries are even smaller regions of priests.
00:05:31
Speaker
And so they come together and just talk about different...
00:05:36
Speaker
topics that come up and then pass them on along to the priest council.
00:05:39
Speaker
And it's actually a pretty cool that all the priests in a deanery agreed
Event Highlights and Logistics
00:05:43
Speaker
on something.
00:05:43
Speaker
So that's great.
00:05:45
Speaker
Well, those that didn't, didn't say so.
00:05:47
Speaker
So we'll put it that way.
00:05:48
Speaker
Okay, here we go.
00:05:50
Speaker
We'll, we'll take it.
00:05:51
Speaker
Um, so what is, what is this event on June 8th called?
00:05:55
Speaker
Fed by Christ.
00:05:57
Speaker
Fed by Christ.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yep.
00:05:59
Speaker
It's taking place at Xavier high school.
00:06:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:02
Speaker
Um,
00:06:03
Speaker
And do you want to go through June 8th is is the date.
00:06:07
Speaker
Archbishop Zekula is going to have the opening liturgy.
00:06:14
Speaker
Concelebrated by the priest of the of the deanery.
00:06:19
Speaker
We have a national speaker.
00:06:21
Speaker
Father Gregory by Kouskis.
00:06:24
Speaker
OP.
00:06:25
Speaker
Dominican preachers is what that means.
00:06:28
Speaker
The Dominicans.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:30
Speaker
Order of preachers.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:33
Speaker
We got a Dominican.
00:06:34
Speaker
Wow.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yep.
00:06:36
Speaker
And then we're going to have some breakout sessions after that.
00:06:38
Speaker
I've been in charge of the breakout sessions and I've been working diligently.
00:06:43
Speaker
We're going to have some for families, some CGS, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which is a kind of way of looking at faith formation in a very hands-on way, right?
00:06:59
Speaker
And so that will be one breakout.
00:07:02
Speaker
We're going to have adoration with praise and worship music taking place.
00:07:05
Speaker
Got Father Aaron Jungi to present about the theology of adoration and how to make a good holy hour.
00:07:12
Speaker
And I'm working on a few others.
00:07:14
Speaker
Oh, Father Scott Bullock is going to be presenting on Eucharist in film.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:07:23
Speaker
And then, oh, Dr. Phil Dre is going to be talking about the Jewish roots of Eucharist.
00:07:30
Speaker
the Eucharist and seeing how we owe a debt of gratitude to our Jewish brothers and sisters.
00:07:37
Speaker
So got maybe one or two that I'm still working on, but we have a and then we'll conclude the day with a Eucharistic procession.
00:07:46
Speaker
That's excellent.
00:07:47
Speaker
Where will the procession go?
00:07:48
Speaker
How long will it be?
00:07:50
Speaker
The hope is that it will go still.
00:07:53
Speaker
We'll start in the gym and then process out around the Xavier High School campus and then back to the gym.
00:07:59
Speaker
Just depending upon the size of the crowd, we think probably there's not another room that can handle that.
00:08:06
Speaker
But it also depends on weather because it's kind of rainy today in Cedar Rapids.
00:08:11
Speaker
And if it would be like this, we might just have to make it simpler.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
Well, you could process through the hallways of the schools or something.
00:08:18
Speaker
So that'd be cool.
00:08:19
Speaker
There's options around the cafeteria or something.
00:08:22
Speaker
So Christ seems appropriate.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:25
Speaker
Cafeteria.
00:08:26
Speaker
I'm sure this ties in.
00:08:27
Speaker
I'm sure Xavier is celebrating their 25th year in existence, actually.
00:08:31
Speaker
Oh, are they?
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:32
Speaker
So that's that's probably I wonder if they've ever had a Eucharistic procession at Xavier.
00:08:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:08:38
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:08:42
Speaker
The two hosts of this podcast, I think I can speak for us all that we are big fans of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and Adoration and Father Aaron Junkie.
00:08:51
Speaker
So, and Father Scott Bullock.
00:08:53
Speaker
I think it's a great lineup with a lot of different diverse topics that is accessible for everyone.
00:08:59
Speaker
Is there any cost to this event?
00:09:01
Speaker
Not very much.
00:09:02
Speaker
We're keeping it to $20 a person and that includes lunch and the handouts and
00:09:08
Speaker
uh, the gratuity for the, uh, uh, national speaker.
00:09:12
Speaker
And hopefully we'll have enough left over that.
00:09:14
Speaker
We can at least help some of the breakout people, uh, cover their costs and so forth.
00:09:20
Speaker
So it's, uh, we try to keep the cost down as much as we possibly can.
00:09:26
Speaker
And is this, I know it's, you're talking about it as a deanery event, but if there's other people like listeners from this who aren't in the Cedar Rapids area, is it open to anyone to come?
00:09:36
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
I mean, we are somewhat limited to space, but at the same time, I doubt that that will come into play.
00:09:43
Speaker
I think we will easily accommodate anybody.
00:09:47
Speaker
The easiest way to register, in fact, is the Immaculate Conception here in Cedar Rapids website is where you can register.
00:09:57
Speaker
And I think it's ICCR.church.
00:10:02
Speaker
It's a...
00:10:05
Speaker
I know if you put in a Google search, Immaculate Conception Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that it'll get you to the website that you'll need to be able to register for the event.
00:10:17
Speaker
And I will put that in the show notes as well.
00:10:19
Speaker
So you can just go ahead and scroll down and click on it.
00:10:22
Speaker
What I've noticed about every single guest we've had on this podcast is that
00:10:27
Speaker
even if they're like a lone professor, no one is doing any of this alone.
00:10:33
Speaker
They're either heavily cooperating with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus in the sacraments, and then also with other humans, which what has the collaboration been like?
Team Collaboration
00:10:43
Speaker
I mean, this is a big undertaking that needs a lot of teamwork and planning.
00:10:46
Speaker
What's the collaboration been like for this event?
00:10:50
Speaker
It has been surprisingly very smooth as far as that's concerned.
00:10:55
Speaker
We have not checked
00:10:57
Speaker
had any issues as far as major bumps or hurdles that we had to cross.
00:11:04
Speaker
And it's smoother than I thought it was going to be, to be honest with you.
00:11:08
Speaker
I was involved in the 80s when we had a big celebration here in the deanery for Pentecost Sunday.
00:11:18
Speaker
And I was involved in that one.
00:11:19
Speaker
And that took
00:11:22
Speaker
Forever.
00:11:23
Speaker
I mean, there was, but this one here just really went smoothly.
00:11:26
Speaker
It was very evident that the spirit was involved and that leading the direction of the group and what have you.
00:11:33
Speaker
So it's been great.
00:11:36
Speaker
Great.
00:11:37
Speaker
That's good.
00:11:38
Speaker
Well, as you know, on this podcast, we are very pro-Eucharistic revival.
00:11:42
Speaker
Hence, we were also inspired to do something.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yes, because seeing that, you know, this is Eucharistic revival, we thought something should be done.
00:11:49
Speaker
And thus, this podcast was also as part of that.
00:11:53
Speaker
And both to teach about the Eucharist, but also to highlight events like this, to help people of the Archdiocese know of different things going on, to know that there are things happening to promote Eucharistic revival.
00:12:04
Speaker
So I guess just looking at this event in the area, I guess, what are some maybe some hopes you might have, some fruit that maybe this will bear, whether in the Cedar Rapids area or the broader archdiocese or whatnot?
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, what are some maybe some hopes for this event?
00:12:23
Speaker
Well, one hope that I have is that we're not just preaching to the choir.
00:12:28
Speaker
I hope that we are able to somehow reach out
00:12:34
Speaker
to those folks that are on the fringes that don't come to mass every week.
00:12:40
Speaker
You know, they consider themselves faithful Catholics, but mass is not really a priority in their life.
00:12:47
Speaker
And I'm hoping that that revival will really touch their heart and really refocus on their faith.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:00
Speaker
And one hope that I have is...
00:13:04
Speaker
having been assigned, and I think both of you guys can have a little sympathy for this, been assigned at one point in my life to six parishes as the pastor, we tried to hammer home that it's not just your church, as in the church in your town, that has valid Eucharist.
00:13:26
Speaker
And even though I think in a metropolitan area like Cedar Rapids, that's maybe better known than it would be in
00:13:32
Speaker
Brit or Garner or Buffalo Center or some of those smaller towns, I still think there are some people who kind of say our church, my church is the best.
00:13:44
Speaker
And there's there's a certain I don't want to take away pride, but I think at the same time, when we do it to the exclusion of the recognizing the the Blessed Sacrament is is the point, not kind of excessive parochialism.
00:14:02
Speaker
then I think we miss out that really the fact that a person is Catholic, receives the Blessed Sacrament, that's really what unites us as the body of Christ, not that I go to this church versus that person that goes to St.
00:14:17
Speaker
Ludmilla's or St.
00:14:19
Speaker
Wenceslas or St.
00:14:20
Speaker
Jude's or something like that.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
So that kind of unity I would like to see as a part of it as well.
00:14:27
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:14:28
Speaker
Unity is good.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:31
Speaker
Good.
00:14:33
Speaker
And have there been anything, I mean, whether it's in this year or just more bigger in your life,
00:14:39
Speaker
Just a little more personal, what have been a couple of things that have inspired for yourselves your own, since we're in this Eucharistic revival, your own faith in the Eucharist, I guess, and whatever way you want to go about that, of just what it is, what it means, the centrality of it to our faith, however you want to go about that.
00:15:00
Speaker
But yeah, where have been some moments, whether more recently in this year or things you've seen or just more broadly in your life?
00:15:07
Speaker
I've often said that if the
Personal Devotions to the Eucharist
00:15:09
Speaker
Archbishop would tell me that he's going to withdraw my faculties for preaching and give me faculties for one area only, what I would really wish that I would be able to preach on every time would be John 6.
00:15:23
Speaker
I think that says it all.
00:15:26
Speaker
And when I read this
00:15:32
Speaker
research of pure research of 76% of the of the Catholics today.
00:15:37
Speaker
And I don't know how how that was a question was asked if it was asked by all the Catholics that are baptized but never come to church or if it was asked of the ones that attend the church.
00:15:52
Speaker
But regardless, that that motivated me.
00:15:55
Speaker
I thought, you know, hey, we're missing the boat.
00:15:58
Speaker
The church is missing.
00:15:59
Speaker
We're not getting the message out.
00:16:02
Speaker
And that the Eucharist is the message that is the source and summit of the message that we need to be preaching constantly.
00:16:10
Speaker
I mean, if the people lose the sense of the Eucharist, we're nothing more than a social service agency.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:20
Speaker
And personally, when I was at Loras College as a student in the 1990s,
00:16:27
Speaker
we asked if we could do Eucharistic Adoration, and we were told by a staff member there that that's cookie worship and you shouldn't do it.
00:16:36
Speaker
And, you know, it's just me and Jesus' spirituality, and the church is always us.
00:16:42
Speaker
And as we all know, anybody who's studied theology, actually the church is both and.
00:16:47
Speaker
It's me and Christ and us in Christ, and that the two are not to be competed against.
00:16:55
Speaker
And so...
00:16:57
Speaker
I really think in the 90s, one of the things that we've missed out on is you build upon the relational notion of Christ within the larger body of Christ, and it builds up then your faith in the church.
00:17:12
Speaker
But if you don't have that one-on-one, like Eucharistic adoration, notion of a real close relationship with Christ, then you miss out.
00:17:21
Speaker
And so when I went back to Loris College as a chaplain, it's now a place where we get
00:17:26
Speaker
frequently engage morning until evening with Eucharistic Adoration.
00:17:31
Speaker
And now that I've come here to St.
00:17:32
Speaker
Patrick's, it's the same thing.
00:17:33
Speaker
I just feel incredibly blessed that we have this.
00:17:36
Speaker
We're the place in town, mostly because of Father Ivan Neenhouse, I think, who really, really pushed during the pandemic, if I understand right, to get started a 9 a.m.
00:17:47
Speaker
to 9 p.m.
00:17:48
Speaker
Eucharistic Adoration Chapel where people can come and pray before the Blessed Sacrament.
00:17:54
Speaker
And it's really
00:17:55
Speaker
Dr. Jason Kuznicki- known I think throughout town with that that people know that they can come and there's a code on the door that between nine o'clock in the morning and nine o'clock at night to strengthen that closeness.
00:18:07
Speaker
Dr. Jason Kuznicki- Between you and Christ that then feeds into and strengthens our ability to connect with the larger body of Christ, so I.
00:18:16
Speaker
I just really have appreciated the development and change in 20, 30 years of my priesthood, or my time as studying for priesthood, of how we are recognizing the importance of the Eucharist, both as a place that gathers the community together as the body of Christ, and as a place where I can connect individually with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
00:18:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:18:41
Speaker
Well, if it's just cookie worship, I mean, I'm giving my life to that cookie.
00:18:45
Speaker
So I'm sorry you had to hear that.
00:18:48
Speaker
I'm glad you brought up the Perpetual Adoration Chapel, well, more or less Perpetual Adoration Chapel at St.
00:18:54
Speaker
Patrick's when I was in
00:18:57
Speaker
end of high school, my family's house was hit by the flood, as was just three blocks away, St.
00:19:03
Speaker
Patrick's.
00:19:03
Speaker
And I'll never forget Father Ivan Neenhouse's leadership of them saying, Father, the church might close.
00:19:10
Speaker
What are we going to do?
00:19:11
Speaker
We have to rebuild.
00:19:11
Speaker
We have to do all these plans.
00:19:13
Speaker
And he said, we're going to have an adoration chapel first.
00:19:17
Speaker
And they're all like, that's crazy.
00:19:18
Speaker
We have to clean things.
00:19:20
Speaker
And he's like, no, we're going to build an adoration chapel.
00:19:22
Speaker
We're going to have adoration here.
00:19:24
Speaker
And that tenacity of I want an adoration chapel in my parish in on these grounds.
00:19:32
Speaker
It happened.
00:19:33
Speaker
It was really cool.
00:19:33
Speaker
I remember when it was five days a week and then slowly opened up to Saturdays.
00:19:39
Speaker
And then now, like I think you said, it was it's 12 hours, seven days a week.
00:19:43
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:19:44
Speaker
Yes, that's exactly right.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:19:47
Speaker
One of our previous pastors, we had adoration one day a week.
00:19:52
Speaker
And it was usually from about 10 o'clock in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
00:19:58
Speaker
And we had one heck of a time trying to make sure that we had at least two people in the church at all times.
00:20:04
Speaker
But it was held in the church.
00:20:06
Speaker
We didn't have the chapel at that point and so forth.
00:20:09
Speaker
So when Father Ivan came and he told me, he said, you know, we're going to focus on an adoration chapel.
00:20:16
Speaker
And we're going to have adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.
00:20:19
Speaker
And we're going to do it seven days a week.
00:20:21
Speaker
I said, you better quit drinking, Ivan.
00:20:27
Speaker
I don't know where this is coming from because it ain't going to happen.
00:20:31
Speaker
Well, he was, once he got his claws into it, he wasn't going to let go.
00:20:36
Speaker
And we really do owe him a debt of gratitude because we are known today as the Eucharistic parish because, you know, other parishes have their own thing going, but that's one of the things that we
00:20:51
Speaker
that we have that we're really focusing on.
00:20:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:20:55
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:20:57
Speaker
I'd have to put that little chapel.
00:20:58
Speaker
It's a beautiful chapel.
00:20:59
Speaker
I love praying there.
00:21:00
Speaker
A lot of the woodwork and a lot of the things were handmade by parishioners.
00:21:05
Speaker
And in many cases, free of charge.
00:21:07
Speaker
Just, it was really cool to harken back to, I'm sure in a lot of older centuries or more churches in our diocese, the farmers, you know, putting everything in and every last penny, every last ounce of strength to build a beautiful, beautiful place.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:24
Speaker
So Deacon Dan, sorry to interrupt.
00:21:27
Speaker
And I didn't mean to go down this rabbit hole, but I think it's interesting.
00:21:30
Speaker
What do you think, like, how did it go from, you know, people barely even being able to get, you know, seven to 14 people for one day to now it's everyday adoration?
00:21:42
Speaker
Like what was, because I mean, that's like a movement of Eucharistic revival.
00:21:45
Speaker
And since that's the topic of this podcast.
00:21:48
Speaker
Was it just Father Ivan preaching about it and really recruiting people or something else or a combination of things?
00:21:54
Speaker
What inspired people to that devotion, I guess?
00:21:58
Speaker
It was, I think, primarily Father Ivan.
00:22:03
Speaker
Every year, he would spend six weeks, six Sundays, that he would focus and have some place in his homily and announce or have sign up in the back of church.
00:22:15
Speaker
for it and the times there.
00:22:18
Speaker
And he was also reaching out to other parishes.
00:22:22
Speaker
I would say for a long time, it was probably 30, 40% of all of the adorers were actually coming from other parishes.
00:22:32
Speaker
I don't know what that is today.
00:22:33
Speaker
I go on a sporadic basis in the sense of different times during the week.
00:22:41
Speaker
I try to make it every week, but it's never the same time.
00:22:44
Speaker
And I
00:22:45
Speaker
quite often we'll see.
00:22:47
Speaker
I was there this morning and there was two people there that was not members of our parish.
00:22:52
Speaker
I know the people, but they're not members of our parish and so forth.
00:22:55
Speaker
And that's not unusual to see that.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
Well, beautiful to inspire more Eucharistic faith.
00:23:04
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
So that might transition.
00:23:07
Speaker
Oh, go ahead.
00:23:08
Speaker
I was just going to say, everything that I've heard is exactly what Deacon Dan said was that Father Ivan really, really pushed
00:23:15
Speaker
And at the time, there weren't a lot of priests in the Cedar Rapids area that were doing adoration.
00:23:21
Speaker
So even though we didn't have a huge window that we were already doing, we were one of the few places that did.
00:23:27
Speaker
And now a lot of the parishes actually are doing Eucharistic adoration.
00:23:31
Speaker
I think maybe all of them having looked through their bulletin.
00:23:34
Speaker
So that's a good thing, but it sometimes presents its own specific challenges.
00:23:41
Speaker
But it's good that
00:23:44
Speaker
people are recognizing the importance of Eucharistic adoration.
Eucharistic Adoration's Impact
00:23:48
Speaker
And I think that there was, you know, timing played a part in it also in the sense that he really kicked this off right after the flood.
00:23:59
Speaker
We had Father Phil Thompson here for two years, beginning the day after the flood, you might say, and for the first two years, and then he moved over to St.
00:24:08
Speaker
Pius and Ivan came here.
00:24:11
Speaker
And I have told him
00:24:13
Speaker
I've been several times that, you know, we really owe a debt of gratitude for him saving our parish for a lot of different reasons.
00:24:20
Speaker
But I think, you know, timing was important because the parish was really coming together.
00:24:26
Speaker
We were in a crisis and we were, you know, we were clutching at straws.
00:24:32
Speaker
Tell us what we can do, what we can save our community.
00:24:36
Speaker
And that I think that the Eucharistic adoration played a part in it at that point also.
00:24:44
Speaker
And then I can see him saying, if he was in this conversation, saying it wasn't me, it was all Jesus.
00:24:50
Speaker
I could see him saying something like that.
00:24:52
Speaker
Um, that's cool that, uh, we're seeing this spring and I actually just looked up before the episode, what revival actually means the etymology of it.
00:25:01
Speaker
And it means to live again.
00:25:04
Speaker
Um, it comes from Latin, uh, vivo or vive or something.
00:25:08
Speaker
Uh, and, um, to live again.
00:25:10
Speaker
And I really think, um, being fed by Christ, uh, which is the name of the event, um, implies that, oh, when, when you're, when you're starving for a
00:25:20
Speaker
nice home cooked meal at the end of a long day of work.
00:25:23
Speaker
You just feel like you're revived again, not only with the food itself, but the people around the table.
00:25:28
Speaker
And that sounds like exactly what we're doing here.
00:25:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:25:35
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah.
Aims of the Revival Event
00:25:36
Speaker
So just bringing this all together and kind of coming in for a landing just so we have this June 8th event in Eucharistic Revival.
00:25:43
Speaker
Just any further thoughts you guys have or closing thoughts just on Eucharistic Revival in general?
00:25:49
Speaker
in your parish, in your area, in the archdiocese, in our nation, just as we're going forward, you know, just some reflections on Eucharistic revival.
00:25:59
Speaker
I mean, it already sounds like
00:26:00
Speaker
When we think back in the history of St.
00:26:01
Speaker
Patrick's, there was this something like a Eucharistic revival that this prayer around the Eucharist was a part of bringing new life, reviving this community and this sense of of moving from.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's this very personal prayer, but that very much connects us to the broader the broader sense of the mystical body of Christ as well.
00:26:23
Speaker
So, yeah, so just as we're on a Eucharistic Revival podcast or whether your own thoughts or or just something you might want to share with people just about the Eucharist in this as we're reflecting on this year of Eucharistic Revival.
00:26:36
Speaker
Well, as far as the event on June 8th is concerned for people who are considering it, I think it's important that they understand that this event is not a seminar.
00:26:46
Speaker
It's not a convocation.
00:26:48
Speaker
It is a true it's a revival.
00:26:50
Speaker
It's a focus on revival.
00:26:51
Speaker
It's heartfelt.
00:26:53
Speaker
It's not a learning session, you might say.
00:26:58
Speaker
It's a revival of the Spirit.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, we really wanted to focus that it's experiential, not necessarily intellectual or catechetical, although catechetical in the best sense of the word, possibly, that very much like Catechism of the Good Shepherd, where it's that Montessori method of
00:27:18
Speaker
really getting your hands in the dirt.
00:27:20
Speaker
That's what we want people to experience the Eucharist, to be touched by the Eucharist, and to come to renewed or new, possibly, faith in the transforming the power of Christ in the Eucharist.
00:27:33
Speaker
Beautiful.
00:27:34
Speaker
Amen.
00:27:36
Speaker
Amen.
Invitation to Participate
00:27:38
Speaker
June 8th, fed by Christ at Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids.
00:27:45
Speaker
Once again, I will put the link to how you can register for that event.
00:27:49
Speaker
And I hope to see a lot of people showing up and being revived by the Eucharist.
00:27:55
Speaker
Very good.
00:27:56
Speaker
Thanks, guys.
00:27:56
Speaker
Appreciate this.
00:27:57
Speaker
Thank you.
00:27:57
Speaker
Thank you, everyone, for coming on this podcast.