IT was a scientific yet profoundly simple statement.
“Jesus’ DNA is in you,” Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist Father David Nugent said about the Eucharist before beginning a retreat at Villa Maria, Fortitude Valley, on July 5.
“In that moment of grace after Mass we have access to Him in a more intimate way – His flesh and blood is in us.
“I have received great grace from intimacy with the Lord in those moments.”
Celebrating his ordination to the priesthood for Frejus-Toulon diocese in the south of France on June 24 and then stepping on to a plane bound for Australia just days later, Fr Nugent admitted to “still being jet-lagged” – although this was not evident throughout his enlightened preaching.
Earlier in July he had drawn Catholics from their homes on crisp winter evenings and early mornings for a perpetual adoration mission event in north Brisbane’s Banyo Nundah parish.
But Fr Nugent wouldn’t appreciate any personal accolade to precede the magnetism that is Jesus Christ.
“People are hungry for Jesus Christ,” the 39-year-old said.
“Our (order’s) charism is to promote Eucharistic adoration.”
There are nine other Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist priests and five seminarians in France as well as deacons, religious and laity.
The order was founded Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon Dominique Rey on July 17, 2007, at Paray-le-Monial – “the sanctuary where Jesus made known to St Margaret Mary his thirst to be loved in the Blessed Sacrament”.
The priests “live within the structure” of a parish and are part of grassroots parish happenings.
Fr Nugent said this enabled them to “know parish life and be formed there”.
His ordination was “incredible”, and about 40 family members and friends travelled from Ireland to France to be there.
“Ordination changes you,” Fr Nugent said.
“You have this death and resurrection.
“Your life changes because of the power of Christ.”
When hearing “the mission in Australia” – to take him to Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Toowoomba and Townsville within the month of July – was to occur just after his ordination, Fr Nugent didn’t hesitate.
He had been invited to come following Adoratio 2011 – a perpetual adoration conference in Rome attended by Brisbane’s Keiran and Kate Hobbs.
“It was put to me (to come to Australia) and I thought this is a great grace to come from my ordination,” he said.
“I thought it would enable me to come with a ‘freshness’.”
After taking the message of the value and depth of perpetual eucharistic adoration to Banyo Nundah parish, 160 new adorers registered their interest.
This weekend (July 21-22) Fr Nugent will no doubt encourage more adorers in Darra-Jindalee parish, as he did from July 6-8 at Melbourne’s Australian Catholic Students Association conference, in Dorrington parish on July 9, Beaudesert parish on July 10, at the Sydney Congress: Embracing the New Evangelisation from July 11-13, in Toowoomba from July 14-18 and Townsville from July 19-20.
A unique one-on-one opportunity with Fr Nugent, amid such a rigorous schedule, allowed for a more intimate understanding of the joy he finds in Eucharistic adoration.
“My joy belongs to Our Lady,” he said when asked of its origins.
“The minute I was ordained I gave it (his priesthood) to her … (and) the joy in it is hers and comes from her.
“I have always been close to Our Lady because everything comes after that in your spiritual life.
“She could see what Christ was doing in me.”
Fr Nugent said his mother, who was widowed at 26 and had two sons to raise, turned to Our Blessed Mother.
They lived in a small town of Armagh in northern Ireland, where he was born.
“It was an act of my Mum to come to know the Lord because she had a great need,” he said.
“She turned to Him and He was really there for her.
“Mum did such a good job and did everything for us.
“We were brought up close to the Lord and close to Our Lady.”
Even though he “strayed” in his twenties, Fr Nugent said he “always remained close to Our Lady”.
In 2004 he entered the seminary and “already had the practice of adoration” from a chapel in Armagh.
After daily Mass during that first formative year, Fr Nugent said he began to “remain in the Lord’s presence”.
“It started as 10 minutes after Mass and then grew to 15 and then 20,” he said.
“My time with the Lord just intensified.”
The fresh-faced seminarian began studies in Rome and was constantly discerning if he was called to diocesan priesthood.
About that time he said his “adoration was even more profound”.
“I had spent time allowing myself to become more faithful to it (adoration) before I went to Rome,” he said.
“Adoration was drawing me more than anything else.
“I started thinking that maybe I have a calling for a community that have a Eucharistic charism.
“That thought first struck me in 2006 but it wasn’t until 2008 that I first came across the community – through providence.”
That “providence” was meeting Bishop Rey.
“Through meeting the bishop this vocation became something real,” Fr Nugent said.
“It was very exciting.
“Bishop Rey is spearheading renewal in the Church in France.
“(And) that is a Church that needs the grace of resurrection.
“He basically took adoration back to France.
“He asked me about my discerning between a diocesan vocation and one to a Eucharistic community and I only needed four seconds (to decide) because I already knew.”
Fr Nugent said it was Bishop Rey who he first heard describe “adoration as the new evangelisation” and he himself was “hungry” to bring adoration to whomever and wherever it was needed.
“What I have found is people are hungry for Jesus Christ and they want to be close to Him,” he said.
“(And) when people know that it is Christ when you simply turn (towards His physical presence in the monstrance or the Tabernacle) then there’s a power, a grace, that comes.”
Asked to define “God’s grace” – a helpful enlightenment for this Year of Grace – Fr Nugent said “it’s God’s light”.
“If you think of Christ transfigured, that’s the brightness that comes from Him – that’s grace and we share in it,” he said.
“Grace is also life – through becoming children of God we are brought into His light and life.
“We see that in the prologue of St John – that He is the ‘true light coming into the world’ and so shares this light with us.
“From that grace we come to know and love this God of life and light.
“If we could see what is happening in adoration we would see this enormous light from Christ that is being poured upon us.”
Fr Nugent’s “dream” is “wherever there’s a tabernacle there’s lots of adoration and then slowly, chapels of perpetual adoration”.
“The primary grace of adoration is just being present,” he said.
“And after that all else will flow.
“Trials come to test the grace of adoration but if you are faithful to it, you become changed and other things fall away.
“It’s like a calling.”
