The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage 2025 began on Sunday, May 18 with an inaugural Mass in the center of Indianapolis, where about a thousand people – including many young families – joined Archbishop Charles C. Thompson to officially start the pilgrimage of this year.
“Our faith is not something that should be lived only within the walls of the Church. Mass ends with a shipment. The Eucharist is transformative. It transforms us to us, and through us transforms others,” the archbishop told Ewtn News before the beginning of the celebration in the Catholic Church San Juan Evangelista.
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The pilgrimage of 2025 is a continuation of the four simultaneous Eucharistic pilgrimages of last year, which converged in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July 2024. These pilgrimages are part of the national Eucharistic revival, a plurianual plan launched by the bishops of the United States to strengthen faith in Jesus Christ and in the Eucharist.
Eight young pilgrims, known as “perpetual pilgrims”, will accompany the Blessed Sacrament during the 5,300 kilometers of this year, appointed in honor of Santa Catalina Drexel (1858–1955), and which will culminate on Sunday of Corpus Christi, June 22, in Los Angeles.
Among the inaugural Mass attendees was Matthew Heidenreich, pilgrim of the Mariana 2024 route, who expressed his desire to support this year’s pilgrims.
“Something like this, a pilgrimage that crosses the country, the Lord uses it to create powerful, really powerful moments, which will finally take many people to him and the Church,” he told Ewtn News.
The student of the University of Alabama, originally from Columbus, Ohio, also shared how his life changed after last year’s pilgrimage.
“My relationship with the Lord and the way in which I walk with him has completely changed,” he said. “To experience that daily walk with him, and realize how much you want to enter each part of my life, transform the way you see every moment and how you live life. Because you simply know that the Lord is with you, walks with you, and wants to be there.”
The Drexel route will go through 10 states – including California and Texas – as well as 20 Catholic dioceses and four Eastern Catholic Eparchies. Throughout the journey there will be opportunities to meet Jesus through the daily mass, Eucharistic worship, Eucharistic processions, testimonies and fraternal foods with perpetual pilgrims.
In line with the current jubilee year of hope in the Catholic Church, the approach of the Drexel route is the “hope and healing”, with visits planned not only to Churches, but also to prisons and elderly homes.
“(The Eucharistic Pilgrimage) brings an approach focused on Christ to a world that desperately needs meaning, purpose and healing,” said Archbishop Thompson. “That is what this procession is about: Jesus Christ, the Way, Truth and Life, proclaimed, worshiped and glorified. The one who guides us and unites us.”
Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.
Zoe Romanowsky
Zoe Romanowsky is a general editor of the Catholic News Agency (CNA), based in Washington, DC. He previously worked for seteia.