Bishop Solis leads reflections at deacons’ retreat

Friday, Oct. 13, 2023

PROVO — During this year’s retreat for the deacons of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Bishop Oscar A. Solis offered five reflections over the course of three days. He began with the themes of “Come and See” and “Cast Your Net into the Deep,” which led to the final three presentations on the Eucharist. With each presentation, the bishop provided Scripture passages for further reflection. 

The retreat was held Oct. 6-8 at the Provo Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. Most of the diocesan deacons and their wives attended. On Saturday afternoon, a separate retreat was held for the wives, led by Carol Ruddell, a lay ecclesial minister, who focused on the women’s talents and how they could use these to build the body of Christ (see sidebar, below). 

In an interview, Bishop Solis said the theme of the Eucharist was important to address with the deacons and their wives because this is the year of the Parish Eucharistic Revival.   

Opening his remarks in his first reflection, the bishop said the retreat was meant to be a time to withdraw from the customary activities involving daily life and ministry into a quiet place to “focus more on God, renew our faith and strengthen our bond of relationship with him.”

The retreat was a time to intentionally pray, reflect, rest in the Holy Spirit, and “assess on God’s call in our life – where we stand now in our relationship with our Lord and ministry,” he said.

The phrase “come and see” appears several times in the Bible, Bishop Solis noted, adding that “it is an invitation to follow Jesus and discover who he is and what he has done for us. The context of the invitation varies depending on the situation, but it always implies a personal encounter with Jesus and a willingness to learn from him.”

The bishop asked the deacons and their wives to consider how their relationship with Jesus has been transformative and redemptive. 

In the second reflection, Bishop Solis used the Scripture story of Jesus telling Peter and his companions, who had been fishing all night but caught nothing, to put out into deep water and cast their nets. They obeyed, and the catch filled two boats. 

Trust in and obedience to Jesus leads to many surprises and what seems impossible becomes possible, the bishop said, adding, “Our response to God’s invitation allows us to encounter the amazing presence of God’s power, love and mercy in our life and around us. It means abandoning ourself to God’s will, design and plan with faith, trust and confidence.”

He urged those present to be willing to follow Christ into deep or unfamiliar waters, and to open their hearts to allow the word of the Redeemer to fill them with his grace. 

Moving into his reflections on the Eucharist, the bishop noted that all four Gospels recount the story of Jesus feeding a crowd of 5,000. 

“There were 12 baskets of leftovers, expressing that Jesus gives more than enough to feed the 12 tribes of Israel, a superabundant and inexhaustible source of grace for all,” the bishop said, pointing out that Christ employed four Eucharistic actions when he fed the crowd: He took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it – all specific actions that he repeated at the Last Supper.

The bishop discussed several Old Testament passages that anticipate the Eucharist. He then explored the New Testament, where “The Eucharist reveals the loving plan that guides all of salvation history,” he said.

The Eucharist is a memorial of Christ’s sacrificial offering, which brings liberation from sin and death, and fulfills God’s promise of salvation and new life, the bishop said. It also “enables us to participate and share in the celebration of our redemption. He loves us so much and desires to be a part of our life, to be in union with us in a most personal way. Receiving Jesus’ body and blood in Holy Communion is one of the best ways we unite ourselves with Christ.”

In his fourth reflection, the bishop explored the Eucharist as the central mystery of the Catholic faith.

The essence of the Eucharist is the transformation or transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, he said, and in the Holy Mass, the intrinsically eucharistic nature of Christian life begins to take shape. “The Eucharist, since it embraces the concrete, everyday existence of the believer, makes possible, day by day, the progressive transfiguration of all who receive Christ,” he said, and added, “We live what we receive, transformed into the body and blood of Christ in and for the world.”

“The mystery of the Eucharist inspires and impels us to work courageously within our world to bring about that renewal of relationships which has its inexhaustible source in God’s gift. The prayer which we repeat at every Mass, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ obliges us to do everything possible, in cooperation with international, state and private institutions, to end or at least reduce the scandal of hunger and malnutrition afflicting so many millions of people in our world, especially in developing countries,” he said.

In his final reflection, Bishop Solis continued to emphasize that “in the Eucharist, we celebrate and experience the self-giving love and sacrifice of Christ for us and for others.”

Sent out after the Mass, “wherever we go, we become not only beneficiaries of the love of Christ, but conduits of his grace and blessings,” he said. 

The “Eucharistic community bears the responsibility of promoting the life and dignity of the human person, and to love and to protect the most vulnerable in our midst: the unborn, migrants and refugees, victims of racial injustice, the sick and the elderly,” he added.  “The love of Christ we celebrate in the sacrament is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all.”