At Conclusion of Malawi’s Maiden National Eucharistic Congress, Vatican Official Urges Christian Fraternity

Blantyre, 12 August, 2025 / 9:14 PM

Christian fraternity that is made visible in the celebration of the Eucharistic is the very essence of the Eucharist, the President of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congress (PCIEC) has said.

In a message read out on his behalf during the closing Mass for the maiden Eucharistic Congress in Malawi, Fr. Corrado Maggioni emphasized that the Eucharist, known to be the source and summit of Christian life, unites the people of God to Christ in “a vital bond, and at the same time, to all those who are grafted into Christ through baptism.”

“While the Eucharistic mystery illumines and promotes Christian fraternity beyond all our divisions, this fraternity, built with commitment, is the prerequisite for a worthy Eucharistic celebration that brings forth the fruit of communion,” Fr. Maggioni said in his message that Fr. Frank Piri read out during the August 9 Eucharistic celebration at Our Lady of Africa Maula Cathedral of Malawi’s Catholic Archdiocese of Lilongwe.

The PCIEC President since September 2021, who represented Pope Leo XIV at Malawi’s five-day Eucharistic Congress said that by listening to the divine word and receiving Jesus Christ from the Eucharistic table, the people of God learn to become brothers and sisters among themselves and with all others despite their diversity in their multiple identities.

“We are united in the one journey towards eternal blessedness, because we are all pilgrims of hope,” the Italian-born member of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary (SMM) said, referring to the theme of the ongoing Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.

The Jubilee Year, which Pope Francis officially launched on the eve of Christmas 2024 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, he said, should continue helping the people of God “to remain anchored to the hope that does not disappoint, Romans 5, verse 5, so we do not get lost along the way.”

“The Lord does not want us, in this unity, to be a nameless and faceless crowd,” the Vatican official said, adding, “The unity for which Jesus prays is as a communion, grounded in the same love with which God loves, which brings life and salvation into the world.”

The 68-year-old PCIEC President, who previously served as Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reflected on divisions in today’s world, and described the human heart as “a liar of thoughts and actions that sets us against one another.”

“Experience has taught us that we live in a wounded, painful way that causes us suffering,” he lamented, and posed, “Is there a way to overcome these divisions? Is there a cure that heals the illness of our souls before those of our bodies?”

To overcome division and cure the illness of souls, Fr. Maggioni encouraged listening to the Word of God and participating in Eucharistic celebration, which he described as “an action that heals the spiritual and material wounds that trouble our existence and that of the world in which we live.”

He explained that in the Eucharist, “we find the right medicine to heal the evils that sadden us, that disfigure the divine image in us, that set us against one another within our families and communities, as well as in civil society, at political, economic, and cultural levels.”

The SMM member went on to underscore the value of a Eucharistic Congress, acknowledging that “with its liturgical celebration, times of prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, fraternal gatherings and reflections” it helps the people of God renew their commitment “to live with the grace of the Holy Spirit, strong in faith, steadfast in hope, and generous in charity.”

He presented the Catholic Church in Malawi with a Ciborium and an Altar set “as a sign of close fraternal closeness” on the part of the PCIEC with the people of God in the Southern African nation.

“In communion of prayer, I take this opportunity to extend my warmest greetings to you, to the Bishops of Malawi, and to all the participants in the First National Eucharistic Congress in Lilongwe,” Fr. Maggioni said in his August 9 message during the Closing Mass of the August 4–9 event, which the Malawi Conference of Catholic Bishops (MCCB) spearheaded under the theme, “Eucharist: Source and Summit of Pilgrims of Hope.”