I reread St John Paul’s last encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which opens with “The Church draws her life from the Eucharist.” So we made our first priority what is most obvious, the Holy Eucharist.
We hired professional musicians, polished vessels, acquired beautiful vestments, provided flowers and greenery in and around the church, installed interior and exterior lighting, restored the marble altar and sanctuary, and developed a first-class altar server programme for boys only (we took a lot of heat for that last one). Last year four of our older servers entered seminary, and the Holy Eucharist is indeed drawing new families and young adults to our parish.
We also spent two years and a quarter of a million dollars building a 24-hour Eucharistic chapel. And don’t forget Confessions. John Paul wrote in his 1984 apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia that the Church suffers “inexorable decline” if her members neglect the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
