May 7, 2025 By Darcy Fargo Though the skies were gray, the light of Christ shined brightly in Lake Placid on April 26, as people from around the diocese gathered at St. Agnes Church and School for the Highway to Heaven event, part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. “Highway to Heaven was truly a taste of paradise,” said Mary Beth Bracy, one of the event’s organizers. “How powerful to see dozens of clergy and consecrated, and hundreds of laity – including many young people and families – who traveled from across the diocese to worship, adore, and consecrate themselves to Jesus in the Eucharistic! Everyone expressed their thankfulness for the consecration of the diocese to the Holy Eucharist and the opportunity to spend time with Jesus in adoration and go to confession, and their awe at the Eucharistic Miracles, and joy in visiting and praying with other faithful, listening to inspiring talks, viewing the diocesan display of sacred vessels and vestments, and venerating the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Saint Therese of Lisieux. “It’s going so well,” said Father Bryan Stitt, diocesan director of Worship and one of the event’s organizers. “Three times during the course of the day, (organizing committee member) Kathy Racette whispered this to me. We knew we had wonderful stuff to share, but how would it come together? Who would come? And how would they respond? We’re all questions that were looming. But over and over again, she was right – it all went so well!” St. Agnes Church offered Morning Prayer and Mass prior to the 9 a.m. start of Highway to Heaven. Then, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Blessed Sacrament was exposed for adoration in the church, confessions were offered, Blessed Carlo Acutis’ “Miracles of the Eucharist” exhibit was on display, and movies on Carlo Acutis and Eucharistic miracles were playing. Father Stitt said turnout surpassed his expectations. “Knowing that our diocese is so large, and then it’s not easy to get into the mountains on a Saturday morning, we expected a crowd of maybe 50 people for the optional morning Mass. We had almost three times that. And they just kept coming! In the end, I think we had over 350 people in attendance. It is said that ‘the Church is one starving person telling another starving person where he found bread.’ Hundreds of people got to experience that in Lake placid last week.” “People placed hundreds of intentions at the feet of our Eucharistic Lord,” added Bracy. “You could sense their hunger for the Bread of Life and the tremendous peace, happiness, and healing they experienced – myself included – in encountering Jesus. Above all, it was truly a historic moment of hope for our diocese. We are eternally grateful for Bishop LaValley in leading us in the Consecration to the Holy Eucharist, and believe that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will work wonders among us. People expressed their desire for more Adoration throughout the diocese and similar events.” Father Stitt noted the event was rooted in the National Eucharistic Congress held last year. “The core group of people who put on the event had found the Bread of Angels at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis last summer,” he said. “They shared that Living Bread in such a beautiful way with the North Country on Saturday. Carlo Acutis and Pope Francis surely would’ve been proud. “We’re in debt to the whole team for all their work,” Father Stitt continued. “Mary Beth Bracy, Carolyn Pierce, Ken and Kathy Racette and Amy Schirmer met almost every day for a couple months to make this happen. Karen O’Brien and Deacon Bill O’Brien – no relation – were a big support at the beginning and end of planning. On top of that, there were countless volunteers who served as greeters, servers, and a dozen college students that helped with set up and take down. Father John Yonkovig, pastor at St. Agnes Church, and Katie Turner, the school principal, and all the staff at Saint Agnes were incredibly hospitable. We couldn’t have done it without them, rolling out the red carpet for us.” FATHER CROSBY GAVE KEYNOTE ADDRESS Father Crosby talked about how Carlo Acutis was “an ordinary boy,” but he also attended Mass and prayed the Rosary daily, and he loved Eucharistic adoration. “We might ask ourselves, ‘where did he get all this?’ He got it because he traveled what he called the highway to heaven,” Father Crosby said. “What is the highway to heaven? As an ‘80s kid, for me, Highway to Heaven was the show with Michael Landon. Remember the show Highway to Heaven? He played an angel who went around helping people. But, as we know, the real highway to heaven is not a mere angel. It’s God himself – Jesus himself – really and truly present, body and blood, soul and divinity, in the Blessed Sacrament.” “What’s the on-ramp to the Blessed Sacrament? It’s Mary,” he said. “Mary is the on-ramp to the Blessed Sacrament. Simply because Mary is the mother of the Blessed Sacrament. She’s the mother of the Holy Eucharist. Now, you might say, rightfully so, that Mary didn’t give us the Holy Eucharist. Jesus gave us the Eucharist at the last supper. That’s absolutely correct. But remember that the Eucharist is Jesus. Jesus, as I mentioned a moment ago, body, blood soul and divinity. Jesus had to have a mother. So does the Eucharist. A symbol does not need a mother, but the real presence of Jesus, God made man, the son of God, the son of Mary, in the Holy Eucharist does need a mother.” Father Crosby said Mary brings us closer to Christ in the Eucharist. “Mary is the ‘woman of the Eucharist’ as Pope John Paul II called her,” he said. “She always wants to bring us closer to him. And what Mary does is help us to draw closer to Jesus, lead us along the highway, you might say, the highway to heaven. Mary helps us to receive the gift which is the Holy Eucharist.” Before consecrating the diocese to the Eucharist, Bishop Terry R. LaValley noted that the Highway to Heaven event was being held the same day as the funeral of Pope Francis, who “has shown us and preached to us about paying attention to the Jesus Christ in others.” “And I think of both occasions where I come up short, and I think of occasions when I’ve seen (Pope Francis) be Eucharist to those he encountered,” Bishop LaValley said. BISHOP LAVALLEY GAVE HOMILY ON EUCHARISTIC CHRIST IN OTHERS Bishop LaValley recounted the Holy Father’s visit to the United States in 2015. “The very first event was Midday Prayer in Washington, DC,” Bishop LaValley recalled. “He seemed to focus in that Midday Prayer over and over encouraging the bishops, ‘brothers, tell your priests to care for the poor. My initial reaction was, ‘there’s a whole lot of other things,’ but his focus was on ministry to the poor, seeing the Jesus in others.” Later in that trip, Pope Francis traveled to New York City, where he attended Vespers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “The place was packed, as you can imagine,” Bishop LaValley said. “The New York State bishops came parading in – in all of our colorful splendor. We were on (one) side of the sanctuary. The cardinal and pope came around. The first thing out of his mouth was not about what was happens here, but it was about what had happened clear across the world earlier that day, when Muslims were on their holy pilgrimage and 600 men and women were killed in a crushing stampede. He asked us to take a minute to silently pray – pray for people we never met, people who were not believers as we are believers. He was attentive to what was happening in the lives of people so far away.” After Vespers, the state bishops gathered around the altar rail. It was to be our bishop’s first time meeting the Holy Father. “I had a front-row seat,” Bishop LaValley said. “We prayed. He came back around. It was like we didn’t exist. In front of the pew on the other side was a young woman in a wheelchair. It was like there was nobody else in that room. He made a beeline for her.” Later, dignitaries – bishops, cardinals and elected officials – attended a dinner and waited for the pope to arrive. “He was nowhere to be found,” Bishop LaValley said. “While the ‘real important’ people were gathered around, he was off in a cloistered monastery having a simple supper with women who live vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.” Bishop LaValley also recalled a time when, while jogging on lunch hour, he saw a ladder on the sidewalk in front of him, and a woman stood nearby. When he arrived on the scene, the woman told the bishop her waterbed “sprung a leak.” “I said, ‘oh. Have a good day,’” Bishop LaValley recalled. “I never thought to ask if she needed anything. It never donned on me to ask, ‘is there anything I can do?’ I was so busy with what I had to do, go home and take a shower and get ready for the next appointment, and I missed an opportunity to see Jesus in another and to extend a helping hand to the Eucharistic Christ in another. I failed that day as your bishop. I wasn’t paying attention.” Bishop LaValley said he thought it was fitting to celebrate and honor the Eucharist on the day of the Holy Father’s funeral. “I just think the day we celebrate his funeral is perhaps the best occasion, before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, for us to rededicate ourselves to such attentiveness and to such loving hearts,” he said. “There’s so much hurting, so much pain in our world today, and so many of us, like me, are about our own business – got to do this, got to do that – that we don’t have time to pay attention. What tremendous opportunities are missed when we focus on me.” After his homily, Bishop LaValley led a Eucharistic procession through the church and consecrated the diocese to the Eucharist.
|
||||
|
|||||||||
