Cardinal Marc Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec, hopes the 2008 Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City next June will revive Canada’s Christian roots, and reverse the effects of secularization.”I believe the Lord of history is inviting us to bear witness to his love and to challenge the forces of dissolution that are challenging our culture,” Cardinal Ouellet, who is the primate of the church in Canada, told the 600 delegates at the national convention of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) Aug. 13.
“This congress is a grace for our country,” he said, pointing to the need to recover the depth and beauty of the church’s mission and to deepen the Gospel vision of a culture of love.
The congress, set for June 15-22, will coincide with the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.
Quebec is also Canada’s oldest diocese, through which missionaries went on to evangelize the whole continent. Cardinal Ouellet said he hopes the congress will “give new life to the consciousness of the Christian roots of our country.”
“We’ve been blessed from the beginning with the gift of saints. Fourteen have been beatified or canonized in the last 40 years,” he said. “Not many countries have so wonderful a story to tell the whole world.”
Pope Benedict XVI has been invited. Cardinal Ouellet said it will be clear by Christmas whether he will be coming.
Cardinal Ouellet spoke as well of “great efforts” to involve youth, describing it a “big challenge, especially in Canada, for handing on the faith and also religious practices and devotions to the next generation.”
Three youth summits have been held since the spring of 2005, each one growing considerably in size.
The first youth summit generated the idea of a symbolic object to travel around the country like the World Youth Day Cross.
That suggested resulted in the beautifully crafted Ark of the New Covenant, which is traveling throughout Canada in advance of the congress.
Cardinal Ouellet hopes the congress will not only transform Canada, but also will have an impact on the whole world.
The time has come to overturn the dominance of what Pope John Paul II called the culture of death, he said. Instead of a globalization of alienation and injustice, he said he hopes to see the globalization of charity, solidarity and of the “unity of mankind in Jesus Christ.”
Cardinal Ouellet referred to Pope Benedict XVI’s March 2007 apostolic exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis,” which he said “bears the unifying mark of the holy father’s vision” of the Eucharist as the “source and summit of the church’s Life, a “mystery to be believed, a mystery to be celebrated, and a mystery to be lived.”
He pointed out the “affinity” the pope’s document has with the theme of the congress: the gift of God for the life of the world.
Cardinal Ouellet said he has observed “signs from God” of indicating a time for eucharistic renewal.
One of those signs came through a 9-year old boy named Jeremy Gabriel, who “spent half his life in hospital” got operations to correct the effects of Treacher Collins syndrome, a rare genetic disease.
Though deaf, with the help of an implant, he can hear well enough to sing beautifully.
Cardinal Ouellet described how in October 2005 the boy sang the national anthem at a Montreal Canadiens hockey game.
He caused a media sensation, and, when journalists asked him what he wished for, Jeremy said he wanted to sing before the pope as a way of saying thank you to Jesus who had helped him very much in his suffering, Cardinal Ouellet said.
Cardinal Ouellet arranged for Jeremy and his family to join the Quebec bishops’ ad limina (an every five year visit to Rome – literally to the threshold of the apostles) in May 2006.
Jeremy and his family were present when the pope blessed the Ark of the New Covenant.
At that ceremony, Jeremy’s wish came true and he sang before the pope.
Cardinal Ouellet said he will never forget how moving it was to hear the boy sing “I will praise the eternal with all of my heart.”
“There were no dry eyes,” he said, noting that even the Swiss Guards were moved and spontaneously offered the boy a medal.
The news media covered the story with great sympathy, Cardinal Ouellet said, at the same time providing “great publicity” for the upcoming Congress. He saw the hand of God in this.
He noted the boy’s first name Jeremy is like that of Jeremiah, the prophet of the New Covenant, and his family’s name is Gabriel, the same as the angel who announced the birth of the messiah.
He said the boy’s mother had been pressured to get an abortion, but she chose to keep him out of respect for human life.
Cardinal Ouellet said Jeremy was chosen by God to affirm the sacredness of human life and “to be the prophet of the 2008 congress.”
The congress will conclude with a universal call to holiness, with special focus on the calls to married life and to consecrated life, what Cardinal Ouellet described as “two key ways of building a civilization of love for the Eucharist.”
“The city will be transformed,” he said.
Cardinal Ouellet said that each eucharistic congress will tell the world that “to be Catholic is something,” and that “we can affirm our faith publicly with great humility and refrain from the tendency to hide and not affirm our values.”
“We have a wonderful story of holiness to tell the whole world.”
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