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o ^ 0 0 Soulhem (Cross Diocese of Savannah Contents Headline Hopscotch 2 News 3 Commentary 4-5 Around the Diocese 6-7 Faith Alive! 8-9 Notices 10-11 Last But Not Least 12 Vol. 80, No. 16 Thursday, April 20, 2000 $.50 PER ISSUE KJ Cardinal Mahony: “To understand the Eucharist, see Christ in everyone” By Joseph Sinasac Toronto (CNS) atholics will never truly understand one of their most sacred doctrines—the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist—until they see Christ’s presence in everyone, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles. “As the central expression of the church’s call and commitment to communion and justice, the Eucharist expresses how we are to live the whole of our lives, thus becoming a eucharistic people,” the cardinal said April 12 during a lecture at the Newman Center of the University of Toronto. About 250 people attended. “Unwillingness to share in the rest of life as well as in the eucharistic celebration may signal our inability to recognize God’s presence in the conse crated bread and wine,” he added. Cardinal Mahony, head of the largest archdiocese in the United States with 5.5 million Catholics, called his talk “Becoming a Eucharistic People.” It was the last of a series called “Voices on the Threshold of the New Millennium,” held at the Newman Center. To the banquet of the Eucharist, God invites everyone, the cardinal said. “Sitting at table are all those people you just can’t stand—the kooks and the crazies, the lame and the lazy, the old woman mumbling to herself as she shuffles down the street pushing a shopping cart holding her whole life in tattered, plastic bags. There is a banquet of the Lord after all, but it is not the one you may have planned,” he said. To be a eucharistic people, then, we must wel come all those we fear, distrust, look down upon. We must see the real presence in them, Cardinal Mahony added. “Real presence exists for the sake of real peo ple—people who die and rise daily with Christ, people who know firsthand that ‘to receive in truth the body and blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest,”’ he said, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The cardinal described the connection between liturgy and everyday life. He argued that for Catholics to become a eucharistic people, they must use the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to enter a process of reconciliation and forgiveness. Then they must have a deeper appreci ation of the links between sacrament and ethics. Finally, they must live out the Eucharist in the way they treat all humanity. Cardinal Mahony described numerous obstacles facing this process. He said he was particularly troubled by the divisiveness among Christians, (Continued on page 11) The Pieta in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist depicts the crucified Savior in the arms of his Mother. Hosanna to the Son of David The Lord's Entry into Jerusalem is commemorated on Passion (Palm) Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week. Left: The Cathedral congre gation gathers in Lafayette Square, Savannah, for the blessing of the palms on April 16. Right: Reader Judy Roddy and Deacon Dewain Smith with Bishop J. Kevin Boland prepare to lead the congregation to Mass. Photos by Jonas N. Jordan