As the Source and Summit procession embarked from The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul along Summit Avenue May 27, Catholics also gathered on the front steps of St. Thomas More in St. Paul, one of the designated stops along the procession route.
Those gathered in front of the church awaited the opportunity to spend time in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament making its way from the seminary. Some brought lawn chairs, lining them up along Summit Avenue, as the sun dispersed clouds that brought rain earlier in the day.
Laura Elm, 47, and her husband, Andrew, 54, were among those gathered on the steps with their children Amanda, 5; Cecilia, 8; Meghan 9; and Sarah, 11. All attend St. Peter in Mendota.
Understanding Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist is “very meaningful and so beautiful,” Laura said. “Knowing that Jesus was going to come down Summit (Avenue), we wanted to make sure we had a chance to spend time with him in a special way.”
For attendees, Laura said she hoped the procession would “revitalize their prayer life and their relationships, that very close friendship, with Jesus — that it strengthens us all in living our lives as faithfully and joyfully as possible.”
“It’s a great experience for the kids as well,” Andrew said.
A few steps away, Jenny Loch, 38, said she, her husband and their six children — ranging in age from 3 to 12 — left their holiday weekend plans early to make it to St. Thomas More for the procession. Loch said she told her kids, “We can’t miss this!”
Loch — a member of Holy Trinity in South St. Paul, along with her family — said the family planned to pray a rosary together during the procession. She said a Eucharistic procession “is such a wonderful tradition for the kids to know that Jesus is there with them and how much he loves them. And (at) this scale, and having it right through the city, hopefully we’ll move hearts. … (The Eucharist) is such the center of our life and hopefully people will feel that.”
Joanna Kolor, 39, called the procession “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and viewed it as “a beautiful moment.”
“It’s just amazing to walk with Jesus and with other Catholics and I just wanted to be part of it,” said Kolor, a member of St. Gerard Majella in Brooklyn Park, who attended the procession with her mother.
After the midday prayer at the seminary, Catholics walked along Summit Avenue, making their way to St. Thomas More’s front steps, where an altar had been placed earlier in the day. A small choir stood off to one side, singing.
Before inviting the crowd to pray the Anima Christi prayer, written by St. Ignatius of Loyola, Auxiliary Bishop Michael Izen opened with a few remarks.
“As I was walking, I noticed obviously many faithful (Catholics) and also … some who were bystanders and perhaps didn’t quite understand what we were doing and were maybe even a little skeptical. I don’t think we can blame them, because our Lord is hidden in the Eucharist. We know that, as Catholics, we know he’s there. We also know he’s hidden.
“So, not surprising that he would hide himself when he came 2,000 years ago, on that first Christmas — not as a great, powerful king, or messiah, but as a little baby. And he continues to hide himself in the Eucharist. But in the monstrance, he reveals himself to us and so it’s up to you and me to show him to our neighborhoods and our world. And so that’s what we do with the Eucharistic procession.
“God has been good to give us such a great day as we show him, and of course we don’t have Eucharistic processions every day, but we can receive the Lord every day in holy Mass, we can visit adoration chapels, and there, our Lord reveals himself to us as well.
“I was thinking about what Bishop (Andrew) Cozzens said at the initial stop … how the Lord wants us to ask and we will receive, seek and we will find, knock and the door shall be opened. … In a special way, in the Eucharist, he doesn’t want to so much tell us something as he wants to give us himself. He not only shows himself, but he gives himself to us in the Eucharist and then you and I take him out into the world. And we do that with bold processions, but we also do that by imitating our Lord’s hiddenness.
“We humble ourselves — not hide in the sense that we shrink or are shy — but we humble ourselves and we kneel, we bow down, we humble ourselves internally by sacrificing, by emptying ourselves. All this in an effort to show the Lord to the world.
“We know that he wants to answer our requests. He wants to heal us. He wants to give us every good thing. But even more than his desire to tell us something today, he wants to give us himself.”
