By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service • Posted August 26, 2024

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Christians spend time with Jesus in adoration or receive him in the Eucharist, they cannot help but spread his love with others, Pope Francis said.

“When you have met Christ in adoration, when you have touched him and received him in the Eucharistic celebration, you can no longer keep him to yourself, but you become a missionary of his love to others,” the pope wrote in a letter to Bishop Marie Fabien Raharilamboniaina, president of bishops’ conference of Madagascar.

In the letter published Aug. 23, Pope Francis praised the country’s Eucharistic congress, which, he said, “aims to bring the sons and daughters of your Christian communities back to basics, helping them to rediscover the meaning of Eucharistic adoration and their appetite for spending time with Christ.”

Encountering Christ in adoration and receiving him at Mass “is a process that helps each person grow into the Christian he or she is called to become,” the pope wrote.

The congress Aug. 23-26 coincides with preparations for the final assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality in October, the pope said, and he prayed that it would help participants in the congress “rediscover the importance of meeting, praying and committing themselves with and for others, following Jesus in the Eucharist.”

Pope Francis also asked, “since the faith in the real presence of the Lord is a great challenge,” that the young people present at the congress “help their brothers and sisters to have the experience of Jesus in the Eucharist.”

“Help them to make their own lives an offering to God, united to that of Jesus on the altar, to make him better known, loved and served,” he said.

The pope prayed that the Eucharistic congress would help each attendee “cultivate feelings of charity and solidarity toward all people, especially those in difficulty, for whom the path of life becomes more difficult every day.”

“There are many discouraged people who look to the future with skepticism and pessimism, as if nothing can bring them happiness,” he said. “Bring them the Lord’s hope, be witnesses to his compassion and merciful love.”