A grassroots Eucharistic ‘revival’ unfolds in the Bronx
On the night of Ash Wednesday, hundreds of Catholics poured into the church of Holy Cross Parish in the Bronx, New York.
They represented the broad diversity of Catholicism in New York City: some were English-speakers, some spoke mostly Spanish, they came from Dominican, Puerto Rican, and African communities, from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and from parishes on suburban Long Island or New Jersey. There were lay people, priests, and religious brothers and sisters. There was even Bishop Joseph Espaillat, a New York auxiliary bishop resident in the Bronx.
They had all come to pray, to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, exposed in a monstrance on the altar. They had come to praise the Lord.
“And the house was just packed. It was kind of like wall-to-wall, and it was kind of like a moment of Pentecost,” said Fr. Vincent Druding, parochial vicar at Holy Cross, the priest who organized that Ash Wednesday prayer service.
