THE 50TH International Eucharistic Congress is due to take place in Dublin next June, where it is expected that over 80,000 people will attend the closing ceremony in Croke Park on June 17th 2012. Since early last year, the preparations have been on-going for this major event in the life of the universal Church.

One of the more visible signs of the upcoming Congress is the Eucharistic Congress Bell. This is a simple bell which has been fitted into a carrying frame so that it can be transported easily. The Bell is being brought on pilgrimage throughout the country, visiting each of the 26 dioceses, a pilgrimage which began on the 17th March last year in Dublin and which will end in a final pilgrimage ceremony at the opening of the International Eucharistic Congress in the Dublin in June.

During the year the Bell and the accompanying Icons will have visited the whole island of Ireland, having also journeyed to Lourdes, Rome and Manchester. This week my own parish welcomed the bell, and the crowds that turned out for the occasion were wonderful.

Simply put, the bell is being rung across the land to call people to prayer, because the bell has been chosen as the key symbol of the Congress. The sound of the bell is traditionally understood as God's voice drawing people together. To be honest I didn't put much pass on the bell until it arrived here, but now that I have seen it, and the effect its visit has had, I can understand why this Congress is such an important event in the life of the church.

Indeed, while the national media are paying little heed to the bell, and indeed to the congress, locally it has been a very different story. Enthusiasm has been slowly mounting as the Congress Bell is being brought in pilgrimage from diocese to diocese, parish to parish; to hospitals, prisons and schools; to places where people can hear the bell being rung. And as the bell is being rung across the land people are coming together to pray and to hear again the Good News that God is among us and calls us to communion.

When I was growing up, the sound of the church bell meant mass time was fast approaching, so it was time to get inside the church, lest we be late, again! The bell is a call to prayer, a call to listen to Gods voice once again, a call to go back to the fundamental fact of the Christian faith: the fact that Jesus asked us to do one thing in memory of him, to share Eucharist.

The Bell is not the focus, just the peal, the gong, and the sound that attracts. It was wonderful to see in my own parish, the young and old alike, coming up to ring the bell, playful like children laughing at its sound, just the touch of the bell seeming to give them contact with the One who's voice it represents. This isn't a noisy clanging nuisance, but a beautiful invitation to prayer and involvement, and to pause in the busyness of out lives and reflect on the things that matter.

Too often nowadays, our busy lives don't allow us to make time for God, to make time to tend to our spiritual lives. The bell is calling us back to that, calling us to rediscover the richness of God's love. It reminds us of God's presence in our midst.

It is eighty years since an International Eucharistic Congress was last celebrated in Ireland in 1932, then marking the 1500th anniversary of Saint Patrick's arrival on the island and with him the message of Christianity.

In many ways, that message has become blurred and unrecognizable over the years, and so the Congress of 2012 is a very timely opportunity for renewal, not just for the Irish Church, but also for those of us who are ordinary pilgrims hearing the toll of the bell that signals His presence with us.

- FR BRIAN WHELAN