A procession that’s part of a Catholic National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will pass through Iowa with stops at churches in the Des Moines Diocese.
Father Jacob Epstein of the Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Council Bluffs says four pilgrimages will merge into one. “Four pilgrimages that started in San Francisco, California, in Connecticut, in Minnesota and in Texas, and they’re all making their way across the country this summer to meet together in Indianapolis in the middle of July, for a great big national congress,” he says.
The procession that started in California makes its way into Iowa and for a mass at Tom Hanafan’s River’s Edge Park Sunday at 1:45 before making its way through Omaha into Iowa and eventually to Father Epstein’s church. “So at a procession of course with the Eucharist, you’d see people holding a big canopy. You’ll see the priest holding the Eucharist in a big golden container called the monstrance,” Epstein says. “There’ll be incense and candles and singing, all to honor what we believe is the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. there with us.”
The procession will stop at several Iowa churches before continuing its journey to Indianapolis. “This national pilgrimage really is about bringing that walking with the Lord to the whole country, right, only if only several ten of thousands of people are going to be able to participate in that big Congress in Indiana. But many hundreds of thousands of people have already participated in these national processions,” he says.
Father Epstein says this event is rare. “They used to have them maybe every ten years, but it’s been about 80 since we have. This is the tenth one we’ve had here in the country,” he says. The procession will leave the Corpus Christi Parish Monday afternoon at 12:45 following a mass. The Eucharist will be driven to the Wabash Trace Nature Trail for a procession to Mineola, working its way toward Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish in Glenwood. The Eucharistic procession on the trail is about 8 miles. Then a Eucharistic caravan will drive to Glenwood for lunch and prayer and then there will be a fellowship dinner St. Patrick Parish Imogene. The procession will move to St. Mary Church in Shenandoah on Tuesday before continuing to Kansas.
You can see the whole route on the Des Moines Diocese web page.