National pilgrimage, congress stand out as 2024 highlights for US church

(OSV News) -- The sea of 65,000 people gathered in prayer at the foot of the Indiana War Memorial is among Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens' most vivid memories from the summer's National Eucharistic Congress. It was July 20, and the crowd had just processed with the Eucharistic through downtown Indianapolis. The bishop had a unique view from his place on the memorial's steps, where an altar had been prepared for him to lead Eucharistic adoration.

That moment was one of many that made Bishop Cozzens, leader of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, and board chairman of National Eucharistic Congress Inc., feel "that great privilege of having been at the heart of something that Jesus was doing that's so much bigger than us."

For many attendees, Saturday's Eucharistic procession was a pinnacle event in the five-day congress, the first national Eucharistic congress held in the United States since 1941.

The U.S. gathering -- and related events preceding it -- was a major undertaking in 2024. As the pinnacle of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' three-year National Eucharistic Revival, it is already proving to be a milestone in the life of the U.S. church, and in the lives of the Catholics who participated.

"The spiritual power of the events exceeded my expectations," Bishop Cozzens said. "I always know it's good when we get together and pray and honor the Lord, but I didn't expect the depth of conversions and the power of transformation in people's lives. Nor did I expect the experience of unity and joy would be so palpable at all the events."

The leader of Minnesota's Crookston diocese, Bishop Cozzens was chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis when the revival launched in 2022. Its plans included the 2024 congress -- a national gathering of Catholics for worship, prayer, speakers and education.

Then, with the support of priests who would make it happen, congress leaders added something novel -- a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage with not one, but four, routes, starting in California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas and meeting in Indianapolis for the congress.

The eight-week pilgrimage across 65 dioceses involved Masses, Holy Hours and community worship alongside a series of processions -- some encircling a block, others stretching more than 15 miles -- as the young adults who served as the full-routes' "perpetual pilgrims" made their way, parish by parish, to Indianapolis.

Covering more than 6,500 miles, it was, as congress organizers had promised, "the largest Eucharistic procession in history."

Bishop Cozzens admits that he had big expectations for the pilgrimage and congress, but both actually exceeded them, beginning with the Mass launching the pilgrimage's northern route from near the Mississippi River headwaters in his own diocese. That Mass and accompanying mile-long Eucharistic procession has led to a local revival in his northwestern Minnesota diocese, he said. He sees it as a microcosm of the congress's national impact.

The congress's organizers continue to collect testimonies from people who were dramatically affected by their encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist. Attendees describe a deeper belief in the Real Presence, a profound experience of God's mercy and love, and an increased sense of faith, hope, love and gratitude. Some attribute emotional and even physical healings to the congress. "The Congress changed my life," one man wrote of his experience. "I can't explain it any other way."

While the congress had more than 50,000 registrants and thousands of others joining via livestreams and broadcasts, the pilgrimage had more than 250,000 participants along its four routes.

Marina Frattaroli, a perpetual pilgrim on the pilgrimage's Eastern route who became Catholic in 2022 because of the National Eucharistic Revival, said her faith has continued to deepen after the pilgrimage. She continues to orientate her life in Manhattan and work in law around Mass and Holy Hours, she said.

In the course of her regular travels, the pilgrimage and congress serve as a touchstone with other Catholics, she said. "It's something that really encourages and inspires people, whether they were part of it, or whether they heard that it had happened."

"There's a real boost and momentum and belief that God is truly at work in this moment in time, and there's a positive direction that the church is heading from," she said. "I think it has brought in a real hope."

Jonathan Day, with his wife and six children, ages 4 to 14, traveled the entire northern pilgrimage route alongside its eight perpetual pilgrims and their chaplains. A political science professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, Day said that he had hoped the journey would allow his children to see many Catholics express their faith and "to give our family the experience of following Jesus no matter how hard it gets." Those hopes were fulfilled.

While the adventure was personally edifying, Day said he thinks "the full fruit" of the pilgrimage is yet to be revealed.

"There's so much that's going to happen over the years, decades … that we will eventually realize that that was because of the pilgrimage," he said.

The congress's immediate impact is perhaps felt most acutely at St. John the Evangelist, which, thanks to its location directly across from the main entrance of the Indiana Convention Center, served as the congress's perpetual adoration chapel.

Eucharistic adorers at St. John continue to pray for the thousands upon thousands of handwritten petitions placed in the sanctuary during the congress. The petitions speak to deep needs: healing for a broken marriage; recovery from cancer; forgiveness for a long-ago abortion. The petitions fill baskets, and adorers slowly revisited them, one small handful of papers at a time.

Father Rick Nagel, St. John's pastor, said he gets phone calls and hears confessions from Catholics who have returned to practicing the faith because of the congress. Meanwhile, his parish has 52 people attending classes for the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults with plans to be baptized or enter full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter -- its largest number in memory, and more than double the average. Several attribute their interest in the church directly to the congress, and others have extraordinary stories of how they encountered the church, Father Nagel said.

What's most remarkable to the longtime pastor is that several OCIA participants are seeking to join the church despite not knowing any practicing Catholics -- a huge deviation from the norm that the priest attributes to the congress's far-reaching graces.

God's grace, he said, "just got showered upon this country and certainly the city" of Indianapolis, he said.

Bishop Cozzens said he has heard anecdotally that there's an uptick in OCIA classes around the country, although actual numbers are not expected to be available until spring 2025.

While some of the congress's immediate impact is evident, Eucharistic revival is a generational project, Bishop Cozzens said. Another National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is planned for early summer 2024 from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. Bishop Cozzens is involved in planning the next U.S. congress, and he expects its year to be announced sometime in 2025. From there, national congresses may be held every three or four years, like the Vatican-supported International Eucharistic Congresses, he said.

However, for Bishop Cozzens -- and many, many others -- the 2024 congress, "has become one of those experiences that will kind of mark your life," he said.