Denver, Colo., Jan 18, 2023 / 16:00 pm
Catholic poets, composers, and songwriters are invited to participate in a competition in which the winning piece could be performed before 80,000 people at the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis is sponsoring a Eucharistic Revival musical competition in an effort to renew zeal for the Eucharist.
The musical competition is one facet of the multiyear National Eucharistic Revival launched on June 19, 2022 — the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi. The revival’s mission is to “renew the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist,” as stated on the initiative’s website.
After a 2019 Pew survey revealed that only 31% of Catholics believe in a basic tenet of their faith — that the body and blood of Christ are truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist — the U.S. bishops decided to take action. In 2021, at their annual fall meeting, they voted to embark on a national eucharistic revival to restore and promote an understanding of and devotion to the Eucharist.