ST. LOUIS (EWTN News) — Organizers of a June 24-26 Eucharistic Congress in St. Louis have produced a video that has been called “the movie trailer for the Eucharist” to draw local and worldwide attention to the peace that is found only in Christ’s presence.
“What we wanted to accomplish with the video was for the viewer to have an emotional response to what it means to be Alive in the Body of Christ,” said Elizabeth Westhoff, director of marketing for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. “I think it’s an absolutely beautiful and powerful video.”
The video, which already has over 2,000 hits on YouTube, juxtaposes the accelerated but draining lifestyle of the world and the animating quality of an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist.
Westhoff hopes those who watch the video will “take the excitement” and “start telling members of their individual virtual worlds what they’d just seen, why it was important, and invite them to be a part of this exciting event.”
So far, the response to the video and the congress has been positive. The archdiocese is expecting between 3,000 and 5,000 people to attend.
This event marks the first time the archdiocese has used social media for promotion purposes. The Facebook page for the event has over 170 fans, and 128 people are following the event on Twitter.
“The world is not as big as it used to be,” Westhoff said. “If we want to truly evangelize, we must meet people where they are. In this day and age, people are on the other side of a computer screen.”
“Just think of what St. Paul could have done with Facebook or Twitter,” Westhoff remarked.
The event, called “Alive in the Body of Christ,” will run through the weekend and was inspired by a Eucharistic Congress the archdiocese held in 2001, right after a visit from Blessed John Paul II to St. Louis. Over 30,000 people attended the Congress in 2001.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, St. Louis’ archbishop emeritus, will be in attendance at this year’s congress, as will Omaha Archbishop George Lucas and CatholicTV network director Father Robert Reed.
St. Louis University High School will be hosting Saturday’s events, which include teachings for adults, games for children, and a service program and speaker for youth.
There will also be a talk by Christian musicians Audrey Assad and the Ike Ndolo Band on Saturday, where they will explain their experiences of writing and performing music for the praise of God. A concert will follow the talk.
The event also includes Spanish and bilingual catechism workshops.
More information is available at http://archstl.org/eucharist.
Matthew Warner: Ask Fr. Barron: How do we keep social networking from becoming superficial?
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Great video, but 2132 hits (at 11:45am 6-23) is not really a Youtube “sensation”. Well, I guess in this culture, for a Eucharistic video, it is!
The video is wonderful. High production value, indeed, and the subject matter is certainly exceptional! Great PR for the Congress. Well done to the Archdiocese.
To the NCRegister- including a link to the video directly in the article would be great, rather than sending me running to YouTube’s search bar or going through the Archdiocesan website. Embedding the video, if you have permission, is even better.
And the video currently has 2,000 views, which is wonderful, but hardly qualifies as “youtube sensation.” That term implies (to me) hundreds of thousands or a million views, not a few thousand (though it would be great to have one hundred thousand views! Keep spreading the word and sharing the link!)
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