(AmericanProsperity.com) – A series of Catholic pilgrimages are being opened across the United States to prepare for a major gathering that will focus on Eucharistic rites and devotions. The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage begins with Masses and other events in California, Minnesota, Texas, and Connecticut.
A group of pilgrims plan to walk the entire route or segments of the route. The routes go along country roads and through cities, with multiple stops along the way to shrines and parishes. This pilgrimage is bringing back a Catholic tradition that was faded by the twentieth century.
Every procession is led by a priest holding a monstrance, which is usually a sunburst vessel or a bread wafer consecrated by the priest. The Catholic Church teaches that the whole Christ “is truly present in body, blood, soul, and divinity under the appearances of bread and wine.”
Tim Glemkowski, CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress said, “The Eucharist is actually Jesus, so for us to walk with Jesus is actually a witness to our faith in a prayerful action for unity, for peace.”
“It’s hard in a 2,000-year-old church to do something for the first time, but a procession this long, with this many people in it, maybe the first time this has been attempted in the history of the Catholic Church,” Glemkowski continued.
In Connecticut, the commemorations began with a Mass on Saturday night. The pilgrimage is essentially trying to revive a type of mass devotion that was more common in past generations of Catholicism. They are being funded mainly by private donors, ticket sales, and sponsors.
Prior to this, there were nine other gatherings under the name of the National Eucharistic Congress, but there hasn’t been one since the early forties. The idea for these was imagined by U.S. Bishops who planned out the pilgrimages.
The history of these gatherings is important to its process many have said that the main reason they stopped is that people were no longer interested. However, in the efforts to bring it back, the Catholic media has adopted it and spread the word, which has brought more interest to the gatherings than before.
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