By Zoe Dongas
As the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage comes to a close, it’s hard to summarize everything we have experienced. For over 60 days, we traveled along the Seton route, making our journey from New Haven, Connecticut, to Indianapolis, for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress.
Along the way, we saw magnificent Gothic cathedrals and quaint country parishes. We sang stunning, solemn vespers and jubilant praise and worship. We processed through metropolitan jungles and undulating country roads. We met numerous clergy, religious, and laity. During all this, we witnessed how Jesus is on the move, desiring to bless everyone with His eucharistic presence.
I began this pilgrimage with a desire for our Lord to transform my own heart and to transform this country. He has done both.
Over the past two months, we spent countless hours in eucharistic adoration. We adored our Lord in parish holy hours and eucharistic processions — and in our pilgrimage support van, which doubled as a mobile adoration chapel.
The humble accessibility our Lord provides in the gift of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament has taken on new meaning for me. I’ve been able to bring to Him in prayer anything and everything — from the frustrations of blisters to the prayers of thanksgiving for graces given. All throughout the day I am in the presence of our eucharistic Lord. Despite my own weaknesses and pride, the Lord gazes back at me with boundless love and mercy.
Not only has He led me to deeper personal conversion, but he’s also been summoning the local and national Church to new life. I have been moved by the witness of the bishops and priests of each diocese we visited. It was moving to see the fruits of faith and apostolate in those men of God who have already experienced eucharistic revival in their own hearts and with passion seek to stoke renewal in the hearts of their flock.
We saw this metamorphosis occur in determined parish commitments to 40-hour devotions, in huge diocesan Eucharistic processions, and in simple, loving hospitality. It has been a blessing to see how Catholics in our country celebrate our Eucharistic Lord in unique ways.
As the pilgrimage reached its destination in Indianapolis, my prayer was simple: that the fire our Lord has fanned in my heart and in the hearts of so many I’ve met will become a bonfire.
While our 65-day journey ended, the revival the Lord desires very much carries on as Jesus continues to try to draw us closer to Himself in the holy Eucharist — the source, summit, root, and center of our faith.
Zoe Dongas is a perpetual pilgrim from New York City who traveled the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton route to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.