INDIANAPOLIS. If there was a common thread running through the talks given during the National Eucharistic Congress July 17-21, it was that the massive gathering and the events leading up to it were meant to have a lasting impact on parishes and dioceses back home.

I honestly don’t know how to describe the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, which both sadly and joyously came to conclusion in Indianapolis on July 21. Thus far, my efforts to find words all tend toward the inadequate, and the best I can do for the moment include “transformative,” “paradigm-shifting,” “unifying,” “unceasingly joyful,” “community-focused,” “celebratory,” “repentant,” “reconciliatory,” “full of unconditional love, presence, and mission.”  And with those, I’m just getting warmed up.  I left Indianapolis sad that it was over, but at the same time absolutely overjoyed at the wonderful experience Jesus allowed us all to share, and to carry forward. My heart has been dramatically changed by our Lord, yet again.

What would you do if Jesus told you that he was amazed by your faith?

The Gospels are filled with accounts of the Lord wondering at the faith of certain people who encounter him: the centurion in Capernaum, the paralytic, the woman with the hemorrhage, the Canaanite woman. Perhaps even more surprising than the miracles themselves is the fact that Jesus is amazed by faith. Since he is God, he knows everything and sees inside the secrets of the heart. Yet it is striking that he wonders at faith.

"The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators . . . by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 48)