By the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles
First things first! Our day began with the youth track Mass celebrated by Bishop Bob Lombardo, CFR, who greeted us both before and after Mass. He was funny and direct with his brother bishops, priests, and all of us. Before the final blessing, Bishop asked all the priests, seminarians and religious to stand in front of the altar and then asked any young person who had ever thought of a religious vocation to stand with us. Over a hundred high schoolers joined us up front. Pray for these young souls and the grace they need to follow God’s call in their life without hesitation or resistance!
After Mass, we split into our volunteer groups to serve. Those of us serving the priest track went to greet the priests and usher them to their seats. We saw MANY, MANY priests and they were delighted at the presence of the Sisters and thanked us for our prayers for them. It was a beautiful expression of the complementarity of our vocations!
Today’s speakers included Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Brian Welter, Monsignor Shea, Bishop Bob Lombardo, Archbishop Nelson Perez, and Archbishop Alexander Sample. The closing hour of today’s program with the priests was a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration presided over by our own Archbishop Jose Gomez.
All 50,000 pilgrims gathered for the evening keynote speakers. Mother Olga of the Presentation shared four powerful stories of modern day “Eucharistic Miracles” of healing that Jesus worked for the poor and suffering souls in our midst. Fr. Mike Schmitz then reminded us that the problem of indifference to the Eucharist in our day and age is not always a matter of lack of knowledge but rather that we have lost our first love. He challenged each of us to walk the way of repentance in our own hearts for it is the only way to greater love and it is the only way to true revival. His talk led us directly into an hour of Adoration in the stadium as he encouraged us to reflect on the fire extinguishers in our own life that has cooled the fire of our first love. We are united in the Most Blessed Sacrament!