Shrewsbury: Bishop Davies dedicates 2018 as 'Year of the Eucharist'

Image M Mazur CCN

Source: Shrewsbury Diocese

Bishop Mark Davies has dedicated 2018 as the 'Year of the Eucharist' in a pastoral letter read out in parishes of the Diocese of Shrewsbury on the First Sunday of Advent.

In the letter on the 'Eucharistic Heart of All Our Parishes', the Bishop of Shrewsbury said that he hoped the year would enable the Church to "build on the fruits" of the 2017 Diocesan Year for Mission.

Events during the year will also prepare the Diocese to fully participate in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and Congress that will be held in Liverpool next September and which takes the theme 'Adoremus'.

Bishop Davies said that it was "the desire of the bishops of England and Wales that we celebrate the worship due to the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's Real Presence among us, both during the celebration of Mass and outside of it as the worship of adoration given to God alone".

He said: "Emeritus Pope Benedict explained how 'Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration. Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive'.

"During this Advent and Christmas, I invite you to pray that we might all become more fully aware of the reality of the Eucharist and grow each Sunday in what St John Paul II called 'Eucharistic amazement'."

Bishop Davies suggested that two steps the faithful of the Diocese could undertake immediately were to genuflect in adoration and to visit the Blessed Sacrament in private pilgrimages.

Bishop Davies added: "I realise sometimes our churches have to be closed and when this is the case, it may help to keep in mind a practice I was taught from childhood to say a short prayer and if possible make the Sign of the Cross whenever we pass a church where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. "