A cross that wears the Blessed Pilgrim Sacrament for Ríos del Sur de Colombia

They call it the Pilgrim cross and from April 29 it travels by road and Ríos the Colombian diocese of Tumaco, reviving the Eucharistic fervor in the parishes thanks to the fact that in its center wears the Blessed Sacrament.

In conversation with ACI Prensa, Fr. Jimmy Angulo, director of the Social Pastoral of the Diocese, explained that the idea was born with the Vicar of Pastoral, Fr. Fabián Gelpud, who “with wood from the place and with headers of Tumaco, created the pilgrim cross, but gave him a form as a custody.”

“Then, she travels all the geography of the diocese and goes through the peoples, but at night encounters, Eucharists, nights of worship, because she carries in itself the divine Eucharist is taken. She carries the Eucharist in the center and then the cross carries Christ made sacrament to bless her people,” he added.

The priest explained that the idea of ​​the pilgrim cross emerged in pastoral planning by 2025 and was inserted to be carried out in the quarter from April to June, within the Marian year.

Then, since the Cathedral of Tumaco left on April 29, the cross has traveled by land the parishes of the upper part of the department of Nariño, which limits with Ecuador. From there he has gone down the Telembi River.

Tumaco is a diocese of mission on the Pacific coast and the goal is to travel the 21 parishes and 2 places of worship that exist. The last are communities that are still not parishes, but that already have a priest.

“The city of Tumaco, where the episcopal headquarters are,” he said, “is a small city, more or less 190 thousand inhabitants on average,” but the diocese as such also covers “eight more municipalities that are stationed throughout the corner of the Colombian Pacific, on the border between Colombia and Ecuador.”

“Olaya Herrera, El Charco, La Tola, Mosquera, Barbacoas, Maguí, Roberto Payán, Francisco Pizarro, are municipalities that remain between the sea and the rivers of this strip of the Pacific coast that make up the diocese of Tumaco,” explained Fr. Angulo.

Therefore, the pilgrim cross is transported by the rivers and sea in boats and canoes, “in caravans from one population to another, because the entire geographically diocese is very wide, but connects through the rivers and the sea.”

Father Angulo said that the population of Tumaco is “poor in material terms, because this is part of the entire Colombian Pacific strip that has practically been abandoned, destroyed, with very high realities of poverty, based on state oblivion, which is historical, but also because of the difficulties of connectivity, because its geography is very wide and it is very difficult to connect from one place to another the peoples that are scattered between the sea and the jungle”.

People live, above all, agriculture, fishing, but also suffers from the consequences of drug trafficking, such as the “presence of armed groups that also do a lot of damage to the community.”

However, he said that “it is a town of great popular mercy” and, in that sense, it is a quality that seeks to connect “with the mystery that is the Eucharist” through the pilgrimage.

The priest said that when arriving at each parish “a fervor has been seen in each of the communities, there has been a awakening in faith, in the desire to pilgrimage.”

The population of Tumaco is 90% black and is a town for which “pilgrimages, processions, both by land and by sea.”

“Then, we have seen that the route has encouraged that expression of popular piety, because of each town that the pilgrim cross is carrying, of each parish that takes it and gives it to another parish, great processions have been brewing, great mobility of the population,” he said.

The priest indicated that the 9 parishes of the urban area are still pending. After that, the pilgrimage will culminate with a Mass in the San Andrés de Tumaco Cathedral on June 30.