National Eucharistic Pilgrimage
Rev. Roger Landry
Ecclesiastical Assistant, ACNUSA

Father Roger Landry is the Ecclesiastical Assistant of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). He also serves as the Catholic chaplain at Columbia University. Father Landry is a National Eucharistic Preacher and a Missionary of Mercy. He has embarked on a 1,200-mile, 65-day pilgrimage (May 17-July 17) that will take him from New Haven, Connecticut, to Indianapolis, site of the Eucharistic Congress (July 17-21). On his journey, he will carry and hold aloft a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament. His pilgrimage route comes from the north of the country. Other Eucharistic pilgrimages come from the south, the west, and the east. In this interview, Father Landry reflects on the stakes of the Congress, the first to be held in the US in 83 years.

ACN: What is a Eucharistic Congress?

Father Landry: It’s a time for a Church in a particular country to come together to receive the Lord, to adore the lord, to be strengthened by the Lord, to go on out and spread Eucharistic love. It is part of a national Eucharistic revival, which is meant to revivify Catholic piety regarding the Eucharist, Mass, Adoration, charity, and apostolate. The bishops thought it would be fitting to have a nationwide celebration. They chose Indianapolis as the setting because Indianapolis is within driving distance for 70 percent of US Catholics.
Has reverence for the Eucharist waned among US Catholics?
The macro trend shows that it has waned in comparison to before Vatican II. It is now trending upward, especially among young people. Yet the macro trend shows that people are losing faith and no longer practice their faith. If people believed in the Eucharist, they would be showing up in greater numbers at Mass on Sundays.
Five of six Catholics do not go to Sunday Mass. Seven out of ten US Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is Jesus. They think it is merely a symbol. And among Sunday Mass-goers, only one in two believes what the Church teaches about the Eucharist. Things have worsened in the past 60 years, but they were worse 20 years ago than they are today. Among young people, if they are practicing their faith, their gratitude for Jesus is greater than it would have been 20 years ago. The frequency of daily Mass—attending Mass not only when they have to, but as often as they can—is growing. These indices are positive. There are signs of a Eucharistic revival, yet the larger trend is secular. More people are living as if God doesn’t exist, as if God Incarnate is not still with us in the tabernacles, on the altars, and in the monstrances.
What is being done to revitalize Eucharistic piety?
As part of a three-and-half year process, the US bishops are encouraging each one of the country’s 17,000 parishes to revitalize worship, and to make sure that especially Sunday Mass is truly reverent; to encourage personal encounters with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration and prayer before the Eucharist; to offer robust faith formation to try to make up for the confusion so many Catholics have with regard to the Real Presence; and what is called missionary sending, which has two prongs: one to announce our faith in the Eucharist with great clarity, and to go to those who are poor and marginalized and integrate them more fully in the community of faith.

The most important phase of the Eucharistic revival is the renewal of the centrality of our Eucharistic Lord in the parishes. And at the end of the Congress, the US bishops will look to every practicing Catholic in the US to become a Eucharistic missionary going out and inviting people back to Jesus, one person at a time.
As the Ecclesiastical Assistant of Aid to the Church in Need, what connection do you see between the Eucharistic Revival and the mission of ACN?
ACN helps suffering and persecuted Christians around the world to live their Catholic faith. And the source and summit, the root and center of our faith is the Eucharist. At ACN we try to serve people who are martyred for coming to church, not knowing if there will be terrorists or a bomb. They take the gifts of God so seriously that they are willing to die for them. Their witness around the world spurs us on, even though we live in a place where we can freely practice our faith.
The second great connection is that there is no greater prayer we can make for those who are suffering and persecuted than to unite ourselves with Christ’s own prayer from the altar in which we enter into his Passion, Death and Resurrection. For us to spend time, for me as ACN’s Ecclesiastical Assistant to hold the Lord Jesus in my hand so many hours a day during the pilgrimage, to be able to whisper to Jesus the prayers for all those we try to serve in ACN across the globe, is a great opportunity for us. So I hope to take the prayers of ACNUSA, as well the prayers of those we try to serve around the world to Jesus in this Eucharistic Adoration on the road, in the hope that the divine savior will give the graces necessary to sustain our brothers and sisters around the world and to strengthen our faith by their faith.
Will your pilgrimage be physically demanding?
No question about it. I am sure there will be blisters and sunburn. I hope to be able to put one foot in front of the other, strengthened by the Lord, as I seek to journey with Him all the way to where He has gone to make a place for us and all the pilgrims with us. The Church’s mission is to receive Jesus’ help and try to bring people to Jesus. That’s essentially what a Eucharistic pilgrimage is meant to do—not just wait for people to come inside our churches, but to take the treasure of our Church out into the world He has redeemed in the hope that everybody seeing us and journeying with us can become the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and the leaven that lifts up the whole world.