Pilgrims bring week of Eucharistic revival here

Our pilgrims have moved on, but our Savior is still here — very real and very present.”

Maureen Quinn, diocesan director of religious education and youth/young adult ministry

Eucharistic processions through town centers and the vast countryside echo the smaller processions that take place throughout every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In fact, they all harken back to the evening of the first Easter Sunday, when the risen Christ approached two of his followers, taught them, set their hearts on fire, fed them and sent them running back to where they came from, radiating the Good News with every word and deed.

“Notice that it was the Lord who approached and walked with them, as he continues to do for us today, which enables US to walk with him,” Bishop W. Shawn McKnight said in a homily before nearly 500 participants in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.

Bishop McKnight presided at Mass in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, on the last day the perpetual pilgrims were making their way through the diocese on their way to Indianapolis.

Concelebrating the Mass and taking part in the subsequent Solemn Eucharistic Procession from the Cathedral to St. Peter Proto-Cathedral were Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, and many priests of this diocese.

The perpetual pilgrims are eight young laypeople who are moving in procession across the continent by car and by foot, adoring Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament throughout the way.

They’re traveling the 2,200-mile St. Junipero Serra arm (eucharisticpilgrimage.org/st-junipero-serra-route) of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage from the West Coast to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

It’s part of the three-year Eucharistic Revival called for by the U.S. Catholic Bishops to renew understanding, belief in and increased reverence for Christ fully present in the Eucharist.

The pilgrims’ two-month journey brought them through this diocese July 1-5 via Sedalia, Pilot Grove, Boonville, Columbia, Jefferson City and Starkenburg.

Scheduled throughout the week were Masses, processions ranging from a half-mile through towns to 12.5 miles along the Katy Trail, shared meals, ardent catechetical sessions and all-night prayer vigils before the Most Blessed Sacrament.

People from all over the diocese traveled to the events and spent time walking with the pilgrims.

Bishop McKnight noted that Eucharistic processions are not parades or rallies.

“Our processions are not for showing off but for putting off all that inhibits our recognition of our Eucharistic Lord, and makes visible our desire to be with the Lord in our public life,” he said.

Likewise, “our participation in the Eucharistic Procession leads to and flows from our encounter with the Eucharistic Lord in the most solemn and supreme action of the Church — the celebration of the Mass!” Bishop McKnight stated.

At every Mass, not only are the simple gifts of bread and wine changed into the substantial presence of Christ’s Body and Blood, the people who participate at Mass are also fundamentally changed — “renewed in heart and mind to the degree we are open to God’s manifold graces,” the bishop explained.

“We go forth at the end of Mass to live the Eucharist we have celebrated and received,” he said. “We become Eucharistic disciples of the Eucharistic Lord.

“You and I are called to be Eucharistic,” he stated, “not only in our form of worship, and not only in our form of devotion in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; we are ultimately called to be Eucharistic in the way we live and respond to the circumstances that life presents us.”

“Follow me”

A period of contemplation followed the Prayer after Communion at the Mass. A deacon then placed the consecrated host inside a large, gold-plated monstrance on the altar.

Bishop McKnight knelt down and reverently swung a receptacle of burning incense, sending up plumes of aromatic smoke.

He then lifted up the Most Blessed Sacrament and carried it aloft as the priests and lay faithful followed him out of the Cathedral.

Children who had recently made their First Holy Communion scattered flower petals in the path of the procession.

Bishop McKnight presented the Most Blessed Sacrament to Bishop Fernandes, who continued carrying the Lord down West Main Street.

Other priests and deacons took turns bearing the Most Blessed Sacrament along the 2.4-mile procession route.

Seminarians rang bells and burned incense at the front of the procession.

Escorted by a police officer in a patrol car, hundreds of people sang hymns and antiphonally prayed the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Litany of St. Joseph.

The eastern lane of the road was closed to traffic during the procession.

The entire group stepped up onto the sidewalk to make way for a passing ambulance.

The bells of the St. Peter Proto-Cathedral, across the street from the State Capitol, started to peal as the procession came within sight.

The organ leapt into a coronation anthem as Father Paul Clark carried the Most Blessed Sacrament up the church steps and presented it to Monsignor Robert Kurwicki, pastor.

A seminarian carrying the burning incense filled the church vestibule with smoke, then knelt as the pastor carried the Blessed Sacrament down the center aisle covered with gold and white rose petals.

Strains of “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” began outside the church and gradually swelled as the people singing it entered and those already inside joined in.

After a time of silent prayer, Msgr. Kurwicki led Benediction, followed by prayers for the perpetual pilgrims, their chaplains and support team as they continued toward Indianapolis.

“That was really cool, because we were following Jesus!” Grayson Twyman told his grandmother, Julie Clingman.

Bishop McKnight said he hopes the gatherings and celebrations of the past week will be “an opportunity for us to let the Lord approach us, to teach us, and to reveal himself to us, so that we might be changed for the better.”

“May we and our parishes become even more a community of the Beatitudes, centers of charity and sanctuaries of mercy of our Eucharistic Lord,” he said.

“Sweat and tears”

Earlier in the week, an impressive delegation from around the diocese joined the pilgrims in walking 12.5 miles along the Katy Trail from Pilot Grove to Boonville.

That evening, people gathered for catechesis, Adoration and Benediction in Ss. Peter & Paul Church in Boonville.

One of the perpetual pilgrims, Jimmy Velasco, a seminarian for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said the pilgrimage is bearing fruit.

“The Eucharistic Revival is well under way,” he said. “We will continue this fire to show others that Jesus Christ has never left us, that he is here with us in the Eucharist.”

For long stretches of the pilgrimage, they traveled in a 10-passenger van, specially modified with an altar of repose in place of the first row of passenger seats.

“We walked through rocky mountains, carrying our Lord,” said Mr. Velasco. “We’ve journeyed through corn fields with Jesus.”

Father Paul Clark, diocesan vocation director, director of seminarians and chaplain of Helias Catholic High School, walked with the pilgrims along the 12.5- mile stretch of the Katy Trail that day.

He pointed out that revival is not something people do; it is God stirring the hearts of people.

“So, we’re carrying this monstrance along the trail,” Fr. Clark stated. “It has our sweat and tears all over it.”

For him, it was a powerful occasion of prayer, “a lot of time literally spent face-to-face with Jesus with sweat in my eyes, and it was beautiful.”

He reiterated that Christ is fully present every time Mass is celebrated.

He pointed out that at Mass, the people offer the bread and wine for the sacrifice, along with themselves.

The priest, ministering in the person of Christ, receives the offering and blesses it.

Blessing, said Fr. Clark, is an act of thanksgiving to God.

“Christ was always able to give thanks because he knew the promise and the plan was being fulfilled,” he said.

“If we are going to recognize more fully his presence, we must first allow ourselves to say thank you for everything he is doing, whether we can see the purpose or value of it or not, and prepare to say thank you in an even larger way whenever we enter into the Mass,” he said.

Everyday encounters

Ss. Peter & Paul parishioner Patricia Lutz, diocesan director of stewardship, spoke of how timely exposure through friends and her husband to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist led her to become Catholic.

“In 1997, at the Easter Vigil, when it became time to receive the Eucharist, I literally felt whole,” she said. “I felt like something had been missing, but now I felt whole.”

Years later, she took part in Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament at a Steubenville Conference in Springfield.

“Jesus was right in front of me, and I wanted to see him face-to-face,” she said.

“I knew at that moment that my life did not belong to me, it belonged to Jesus, and I intended to give him thanks for everything he gave to me.”

For the Eucharistic Revival, she advised everyone to keep learning about and going deeper into their faith by becoming active in their parishes, going to Mass regularly, participating in Bible studies and small faith-sharing groups, finding a good Catholic app, praying the Liturgy of the hours, asking questions, and being unapologetically Catholic.

“The Mass is not about the music or the preaching,” she said. “It’s about the Eucharist — the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. That’s why we go to Mass. That’s what makes us Catholic.”

Nathan Imhoff, an eighth-grader at St. Joseph School in Pilot Grove, said going to a Catholic school helps him grow in his relationship with God and appreciate the time he gets to spend at Mass.

“Receiving Holy Communion is a gift in itself, which also makes me feel like I’m part of a community of Catholics who are likeminded in their belief that bread is transformed into the Holy Body of Christ,” he said.

“But we don’t just encounter Jesus in the Eucharist. We encounter him all the time in everyday life.”

“Grace and renewal”

Each evening after the pilgrims walked, a parish hosted a meal, teaching on the Eucharist, personal witness and Adoration.

Jen Cordia, a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish of Pettis County, said one of the things she loves most about being Catholic is the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

“Each time we receive Holy Communion, we are choosing to accept the new covenant God made with us by accepting the love Jesus has for us, which he offered through his sacrifice for us,” she said.

She called the Blessed Sacrament “the ultimate love story” of Christ sacrificing himself in love for others.

Father Benjamin Nwosu said walking with the pilgrims and being graced by the Lord’s presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament filled his heart with indescribable joy.

He called it “a night of grace and renewal for our diocese and a profound spiritual experience.”

The pastor of St. Ann Parish in Warsaw, St. Bernadette Parish in Hermitage and the Mission of Ss. Peter and Paul in Cole Camp said hearing Confessions while Adoration was going on was “deeply reassuring and uplifting.”

“Witnessing the profound work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the pilgrims who came to adore the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament was a deeply inspiring and humbling experience.”

It was “a reminder to place Christ in the center of our lives and always seek his presence in the Holy Eucharist,” said Fr. Nwosu.

“I will give you rest”

Heavy rain on July 3 flooded out part of the Katy Trail, so the pilgrims processed with the Most Blessed Sacrament, carried by Father Daniel Merz, around the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

July 4 was a day of rest for the pilgrims, with Adoration taking place all day in St. Peter Proto-Cathedral in Jefferson City.

Sights and sounds of the holiday surrounded the church, but all mortal flesh kept silence within the candle-lit confines.

Gold and white rose petals adorned the center aisle leading to the altar upon which the Most Blessed Sacrament was enthroned in a monstrance.

The candles on the altar and along the walls seemed to grow brighter as clouds dimmed the sunlight.

Groups of parishioners led prayers and devotions at the top of each hour.

People occasionally stepped forward to kneel on an ornate prie dieu placed directly in front of the altar.

It was the same historical fixture Bishop Joseph M. Marling C.PP.S., founding bishop of Jefferson City, knelt and prayed upon at his Installation Mass in 1956.

“Jesus at the center”

Tall trees formed a canopy over the outdoor altar and pews at the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in Starkenburg, where people from throughout the diocese gathered again for Adoration before bidding the national pilgrims farewell.

“What a blessed several days of walking with and worshiping Jesus!” said Father David Veit, pastor of St. Brendan Parish in Mexico, who had traveled for miles by foot with the pilgrims.

“It was the opportunity and experience of a lifetime, filled with laughter and blisters, tears of joy, sweat, acts of kindness to others and over 11 hours total of confessions heard!” he stated.

Father Joseph Luzindana, associate pastor of Cathedral of St. Joseph Parish in Jefferson City and moderator for youth and young adult ministry for this diocese, gave a rousing meditation.

“It’s beautiful for us to be here with Jesus Christ,” said Fr. Luzindana. “Believe me! He has blessed us, and everything will be fine.”

He emphasized that people who receive Holy Communion are to become what they receive.

“We present ourselves to God,” he stated. “And by the time we leave Mass, we have already been broken, and God transforms us to be Eucharistic people.

“We become like Jesus,” he said. “We are united with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. You are a child of God!”

Christ remains in the people who receive him in Holy Communion.

“And wherever we go, we are like that monstrance, and Jesus is in the center of our lives,” he said.

“God showed up!”

People lined the walkway from the outdoor altar to the national pilgrims’ specially outfitted vehicle.

People knelt down in the grass as Fr. Luzindana carried the Most Blessed Sacrament, pronounced the prayers of Benediction, placed the monstrance on a special altar for Adoration inside the van, and led the singing of “Tantum Ergo.”

“God showed up in small and big ways,” said Maureen Quinn, diocesan director of religious education and youth/young adult ministry.

She urged everyone to keep the spirit of the Eucharistic Pilgrimage active and always close to their hearts.

“Our pilgrims have moved on, but our Savior is still here — very real and very present,” she said.

She invited everyone to become more active in their parishes and to invite inactive Catholics back into the fold.

“Because we want to bring the Savior to as many people as possible,” she said.