JANESVILLE — “It was early in October when we got a text from our parochial vicar, Fr. Matthew Pearson, asking if [my wife] Sherri and I wouldn’t want to be a part of a video [related to] the Eucharistic revival,” said Matt Piekarski, a parishioner at St. John Vianney Parish in Janesville.
Matt and Sherri have been married 19 years and have three children. They moved to Wisconsin from Indiana in 2017 when Matt took a position as the distribution center manager at Blain’s Farm and Fleet.
“We’re very average people,” said Sherri. “But with maybe a noticeable above average love of the Lord.”
The 15-minute film titled Dare to Believe | The Eucharist features brief conversations about the Eucharist with people at the state capitol in Madison and a close-knit conversation over a fire at Camp Gray in Reedsburg with Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison.
“This is kind of funny,” said Matt. “In our heads, we were thinking [it would be] 20 to 30 people [with] the bishop talking, and maybe they’d be filming. We pulled up to Camp Gray and there was hardly anybody there.”
“After we realized it was just going to be us, the magnitude of it just [hit us],” said Sherri. “[We are] just so amazed by the final product. They did an amazing job, and we are so honored to be a part of it. I mean, we are in it, and it touched us more than we can imagine. Hopefully it’ll touch some more souls as well.”
Coming to appreciate the Eucharist
The Piekarskis said that after their faith was challenged by the McCarrick scandal in 2018, they started having deeper conversations about “where are we going from here, [and] Sherri really started doing some research,” said Matt.
Matt is a cradle Catholic while Sherri is a convert to Catholicism. A lot of their conversations revolved around their personalities and what they brought to the marriage.
“Our marriage has a lot to do with it,” said Sherri. “I think we realized why God put us together with my seeking [and] his courage. We were able to help each other, and God knew that’s really what we needed. I needed the courage and support. He needed the passion.”
“We started looking at what does being a true Catholic really mean, and a lot of it pointed to the Body and Blood of Christ and the Eucharist and having a relationship with Jesus,” said Matt. “So we started making that a pretty big center point of our lives.”
“The timing impacted us so much,” Sherri added. “The COVID lockdown was such a turning point for us because we had just had this big reversion experience, understanding what we’d missed about the mystery and just the reality of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and to just fall in love that deeply and then to all of a sudden have Mass moved away from us was just shocking [but also] a moment for deeper conversion.”
The video
The video was the brainchild of Fr. Matthew Pearson who was ordained to the priesthood last year and is remaining in Janesville as parochial vicar for the parishes in Pastorate 13.
“Right now, I assist at St. John Vianney and Nativity of Mary,” he said. “In the new set up of the pastorate, I’ll be doing work at St. Patrick and St. William also.”
He said he approached Bishop Hying with the idea last spring.
“I just asked him if he wanted to make a video for the Eucharistic revival,” said Father Pearson. “About mid-summer, Bishop gave the green light for the idea, and he gave us a lot of freedom. It was great to see him trust us.
“We wanted it to have a documentary feel to it. It wasn’t just going to be a catechetical video. It was going to be with real people and experiences, including the bishop, his experience, [and] his desire for what he thought the Eucharistic revival would look like in the diocese.”
Father Pearson said that the goal is to allow the video to be a conversation starter in the hopes of bringing people back to Mass.
“The easiest first step is to share it on social media, just so more people can see it,” he said. “But the other really big idea that governed the project was getting people to come back to Mass. There’s a certain tie in to the bishop’s four holy habits.
“We want to encourage people to invite their family, their friends, the people they work with to watch the video, and we want it to be something that encourages people to give their own testimony about what the Eucharist means to them.”
“My mom was like instantly, ‘Can I share it on Facebook?’” said Matt Piekarski. “We got a lot of positive responses from friends which is encouraging. You’re not sure how it’s going to come across. We are trying to balance humility with evangelization. Sometimes you just feel unworthy. Nobody is perfect, right? But you just feel a little unworthy, but God picks you for a reason.”
The video can be found at daretobelieveseries.com