Men’s conference centers on Eucharist

FULLERTON – Men attending this year’s Catholic Men’s Fellowship Conference March 19 at St. Joseph in Fullerton were challenged to deepen their love for the Eucharist and recognize that the lifelong relationship they develop with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is as deep and profound as any other friendship.

“Real Presence. Real Power. The Eucharist” was the theme of the conference that attracted more than 400 participants and more than 40 volunteers.

Several speakers addressed various themes related to the Eucharist, prompting in-depth conversations among the men in between presentations.

Jim Hamilton, a parishioner of St. Joseph in Fullerton, noted he had firsthand experience of the power of the Eucharist when his mother, Mary Agnes Hamilton, died in February. She had been pursuing a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Eucharist for some time, he said.

“The Eucharist was so central and important to her life,” Hamilton said.  “Father Jesse (Bolger), the pastor here at St. Joseph, offered to bring her the Eucharist after 8:30 a.m. Mass that Saturday. She went into an ecstasy, and she passed away 15 minutes later. Eucharist is food for the journey.”

Hamilton remembered that with her last few breaths, his mother was praying her rosary.

“When you’re toward the end of your life,” he said, “your breathing becomes harder and slower. Your eyes are not as alert. But then she received the Eucharist and her eyes kind of lit up. There was an excitement in her face. In my mom’s passing, I can see that the promises are true.”

For one father at the conference, getting his young son started out right in his relationship with the Eucharist is paramount.

Stephen Farias, a parishioner of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, was at the conference with his 20-month-old son, Jonathan. He and his wife are just getting started raising a family, he said.

“We’re trying to think of how to be intentional as a family,” Farias said. “We’re trying to help Jonathan grow up in the presence of Christ.”

He said his family goes to eucharistic adoration once a month at the basilica. Sometimes that means his wife is chasing their child for a half hour and then he is chasing him, but “we’re trying to bring him up in the real presence of our Lord.”

With the conference falling on the Feast of St. Joseph, Archbishop William E. Lori focused on St. Joseph in his homily at Mass. He said St. Joseph’s life and example are “more important than ever” since men live in a culture and society in which marriage, family and fatherhood are “under attack” and the notion of masculinity has become “blurred and confused.”

“Sometimes the reaction to all of that is machismo,” Archbishop Lori said. “You don’t need to know a word of Spanish to know what machismo is. It’s like pretending we have to be 800-pound gorillas to get respect. Machismo is conforming to all the stereotypes our culture throws at us when it says that men who accept their identity are cruel and insensitive bullies. Joseph helps us to throw off those stereotypes.”

St. Joseph teaches men to be of “bedrock faith, who have had the courage to entrust the whole of our lives to God.”

“He teaches us that if we would entrust our lives to God, we have to master ourselves, and overcome sins and sinful attitudes that put us at enmity with God, for no one at enmity with God can intentionally cooperate with his plans,” Archbishop Lori said. “Joseph teaches us how to say ‘yes’ to God even when we have questions, and to roll up our sleeves when we know God is calling us to do something, whether it is for our families, our parish or for someone who needs our help.”

Alvaro de Vicente, headmaster at The Heights School in Potomac, told the audience that every man is a father in the way he supports the young people around him.

“We have to talk about God all the time,” he said, “but we must use words less than 1 percent of the time.”

De Vincente said fathers can bring the Lord to their children in simple ways such as by cooking breakfast before going off to work or before school starts.

A half dozen speakers gave presentations, and there was plenty of time in the schedule to listen to music, share fellowship, go to eucharistic adoration and the sacrament of reconciliation, and explore several exhibits.

Peter Najow from St. Matthew in Baltimore said he had attended previous men’s conferences.

“At this time of Lent, it’s a time to really improve,” he said. “It is time to reconnect and pray for other people. Being together in community, it gives a feeling of being closer to the Lord in another way. I don’t know what else I would be doing if I’m not living in a eucharistic way.”

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