About 1,500 Catholics from the Archdiocese of Chicago gathered Feb. 23 at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School to share fellowship and ideas, learn how to better serve their parish communities and find inspiration. This year’s annual Parish Leadership Day, sponsored by the archdiocesan Office for Councils, focused on “Encountering the Living Christ in the Eucharist,” which relates to this being the Year of Sunday Mass under the archdiocese’s Strategic Pastoral Plan and the worldwide Year of Faith. Keynote speaker David Currie, a former evangelical missionary who later joined the Catholic Church with his wife and six children, touched on both themes as he shared his story and an analysis of the Nicene Creed — a prayer that sets out what the Catholic faithful believe, and is recited every Sunday at Mass. Currie said his wife, Colleen, said leaving their evangelical church behind was the most difficult thing she’d ever done. “We left family, friends and everything we knew behind,” said Currie, author of “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic” (Ignatius Press, 1996). But in doing so, he said, he and his family became part of a “steady stream” of evangelical ministers joining the Catholic Church, even though it meant leaving not just their faith, but also their livelihood. “The Mass is what sets us apart as the people of God,” Currie said. “If the Jews are the people of the law and the Protestants are the people of the book, then we Catholics are the people of the Eucharist.” Father Louis Cameli picked up that theme later in the day in his workshop on “Motivation for the Year of Sunday Mass.” “I cannot imagine my life without the Eucharist,” he said. If people really understood what the Eucharist is — an opportunity to meet and communicate with Jesus present in the world today — it would not be difficult to persuade them to come to Mass, he said. “We should learn a lesson from people who are in advertising and sales” to get the message out, Cameli said. Many of the participants said that while they enjoyed the theological discussions, what they really came for was to find out what other people in similar positions in their own parishes were doing. Linda Krier attended with almost all of her fellow members of the parish pastoral council at St. Benedict, 2215 W. Irving Park Road. Everybody attended different workshops and then gathered to share what they had learned, she said. Deacon Mark Phelan from Most Holy Redeemer Parish in Evergreen Park, — a first-time attendee to Parish Leadership Day —concurred with Currie’s emphasis on the need for Sunday Mass. “When my children went off to college, that was the advice I gave them: Go to Mass every Sunday,’ he said. “If they do that, they won’t go too far wrong.”