One of the great legacy's Pope John Paul II left us was the YEAR of the EUCHARIST.

This Eucharistic year is very special to Prayer Power. Manifesting our love for Our Divine Lord through Eucharistic Adoration is the heart of our prayer movement. It is the reason we pray for vocations to the priesthood. We hunger for Our Lord in the Eucharist.

Without priests, there is no Eucharist. As our human body needs food to live, our spiritual soul needs the Eucharist to love. We hope these excerpts from our late Holy Father's talk at the 48th International Eucharistic Congress (Mexico, 2004) will light your way to the Heart of Jesus where He will show you the path He wants you to take and the work He wants you to do.

Our Holy Father began his talk quoting Jesus' promise to us. "I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28: 20). In contemplation before the Eucharist, at this moment we experience with special vividness the truth of Christ's promise: He is with us!

"The Eucharist, Light and Life of the New Millennium". The theme of the Congress invites us to consider the Eucharistic Mystery not only in itself, but also in relation to the problems of our time. Mystery of light! The human heart, burdened with sin, often bewildered, weary and tried by suffering of all kinds, has need of light. The world needs light in the difficult quest for a peace that seems remote, at the beginning of a millennium overwhelmed and humiliated by violence, terrorism and war.

The Eucharist is light! In the Word of God constantly proclaimed, in the bread and wine that have become the Body and Blood of Christ, it is precisely he, the risen Lord, who opens minds and hearts and makes us recognize him, as he made the two disciples at Emmaus recognize him, in the "breaking of the bread" (cf. Lk 24: 35).

Mystery of life! What greater aspiration is there in life? Yet threatening shadows are hanging over this universal human hope: the shadow of a culture that denies respect for life in all its stages; the shadow of an indifference that relegates countless people to a destiny of hunger and underdevelopment; the shadow of scientific research that is sometimes used to serve the selfishness of the strongest.

Dear brothers and sisters, the needs of our many brothers and sisters call us into question. We cannot close our hearts to their pleas for help. Nor can we forget that "one does not live by bread alone" (cf. Mt 4: 4). We are in need of the "living bread which came down from heaven" (Jn 6: 51). Jesus is this bread. Nourishing ourselves on him means welcoming God's life itself (cf. Jn 10: 10) and opening ourselves to the logic of love and sharing.

I desired this Year to be dedicated especially to the Eucharist. But, in this Year of the Eucharist, the Christian community is invited to become more aware of it through a more deeply felt celebration, prolonged and fervent adoration and a greater commitment to brotherhood and the service of the least. The Eucharist is the source and manifestation of communion. It is I desired this Year to be dedicated especially to the Eucharist.

But, in this Year of the Eucharist, the Christian community is invited to become more aware of it through a more deeply felt celebration, prolonged and fervent adoration and a greater commitment to brotherhood and the service of the least. The Eucharist is the source and manifestation of communion. It is the principle and plan of mission.We implore you, Lord Jesus, stay with us!

Sustain us in our weariness, forgive our sins and direct our steps on the path of goodness. Bless the children, the young people, the elderly, families and the sick in particular. Bless the priests and consecrated persons. Bless all humanity. In the Eucharist, you made yourself the "medicine of immortality." Give us the taste for a full life that will help us journey on as trusting and joyful pilgrims on this earth, our gaze fixed on the goal of life without end.

Stay with us, Lord! Stay with us! Amen."

Summer 2005