Relics of men who loved the Eucharist to be featured at men’s conference

A relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who died in 2005 and was beatified in 2020, will be on display for veneration on Feb. 18 at East Central High School in St. Leon during the eighth annual E6 Catholic Men’s Conference, sponsored by All Saints Parish in Dearborn County. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

Since its inception in 2015, the E6 Catholic Men’s Conference held in southeastern Indiana has drawn internationally known Catholic speakers to inspire men to grow in their faith.

This year, conference organizers are reaching into the communion of saints to accomplish this mission.

Relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and St. Manuel Gonzales Garcia will be on display for veneration throughout the event that will take place from 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Feb. 18 at East Central High School in St. Leon.

The “E6” in the conference title refers to the sixth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in which the Apostle calls believers to take up “the armor of God” in the spiritual fight against the devil (Eph 6:11).

Taking place during the first year of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival, this year’s E6 Conference will have a special emphasis on the Eucharist, with the relics helping to sharpen that focus.

Blessed Carlo, who died at age 15 in 2005, was beatified in 2020. Known for his deep faith from a young age, Blessed Carlo combined his love for the Eucharist and his interest in computers by creating a website that provides information on eucharistic miracles that have occurred around the world.

St. Manuel Gonzalez Garcia was a Spanish bishop who died in 1940. Known as the “bishop of the tabernacle,” he worked tirelessly to spread devotion to the Eucharist. When he died, he asked to be buried near the tabernacle of Palencia, where he had served as bishop.

“I ask to be buried next to a tabernacle,” he wrote before his death, “so that my bones, after death, as my tongue and my pen in life, are saying to those who pass: There is Jesus! … Do not leave him abandoned!”

Father Jonathan Meyer, pastor of All Saints Parish in Dearborn County, which sponsors the conference, sees a close connection between the Eucharist and the faith of Catholic men.

“We want men to be men of the Eucharist,” he said. “We want them to be men who, first and foremost, attend holy Mass; worship our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; and then strive to live lives under the motto of ‘This is my body given up for you that.’

“We learn from the Master, we learn from our Lord how to lay down our lives and to give ourselves away in beautiful love.”

Father Meyer said that having the conference focused on the Eucharist will help the men attending live out their faith more fully and concretely in their daily lives.

“Our worship and reception of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is truly a call it to be a eucharistic men who offer their lives daily to their wives, their children, to the poor, to the struggling,” he said. “It’s beautiful. I’m excited about it.”

For the first time, Father Meyer will be a keynote speaker at the conference.

Other speakers include Matt Birk, a former All-Pro and Super Bowl champion National Football League center. A devout Catholic husband and father, Birk received the NFL’s prestigious Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2011 for his efforts to improving literacy among at-risk youths in Baltimore, where at the time he was a player for the city’s Ravens football team.

Catholic author and speaker Bear Woznick will also be featured at the conference. A world champion surfer and host of shows on TV and radio for the Eternal Word Television Network, Woznick is an author of several books on living the Catholic faith.

Added late to the conference’s schedule will be an appearance by Mark Houck, who was acquitted on Jan. 30 by a jury in a federal court in Philadelphia of two charges that he had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, for allegedly assaulting an abortion clinic volunteer in October 2021.

Houck is the founder of The King’s Men, a Catholic lay apostolate. A chapter of the apostolate at All Saints Parish in Dearborn County has been involved in organizing the conference since it began in 2015. Houck was a speaker at the conference in 2016.

The conference will include presentations by the speakers, the praying of the rosary, Mass, eucharistic adoration and Benediction. The sacrament of penance will be available throughout the event.

Tickets to the conference are $40 for men 25 and older. Those under 25 can attend for $15. Clergy and religious can attend for free. Groups of 10 or more can purchase tickets for $35 per person.

Lunch is included in the ticket price.

“We now live in a post-COVID world,” Father Meyer said, “and there is a great need for us to be with each other. All of us can listen to content online. That’s a great gift that we have in our time.

“But they are also times to come together as brothers in the Lord for community, for prayer and to be men together for Christ. And I believe that that is something that God is inviting us to truly consider.”
 

(For more information on the E6 Catholic Men’s Conference or to purchase tickets, visit www.e6catholicmensconference.com.) †