Photos by Courtney Meyer, in partnership with the National Eucharistic Congress
In 2020, right before a global pandemic shut down the earth, Kai Weiss, a young man from Germany, visited a church in the Manhattan borough of New York, and his life was changed forever.
“I walked into a church where Adoration took place, and the moment I saw it - or, saw Him. I was suddenly struck: ‘Oh wow, this is Jesus!’”
That was in February. Just a few weeks later, COVID lockdowns would be implemented and he would be stuck home in Germany. But this would not be a bad thing for Weiss’ spiritual life.
Time at home allowed him to discover a perpetual adoration chapel—a chapel allowing for the exposition of the Eucharist all the time—only ten minutes from his hometown.
This chapel in Germany, found due to a seeming happenstance encounter inside a church in a New York borough halfway around the world, would change the trajectory of his life forever.
“Everything else stopped around me. I would start going there all the time - especially at night when one could spend time all alone with Eucharistic Jesus in this small, candle-lit room,” Weiss explained via email.
“One of the most fascinating things is that the more you grow in Eucharistic devotion, the greater, and perhaps the more mysterious, Jesus becomes - and so I have just felt an urge over the years to go deeper in this Eucharistic way of life, which I so imperfectly seek to live.”
Originally from Regensburg, Germany, Weiss moved to America in 2021 and is one of the twenty-four Perpetual Pilgrims undertaking a monumental journey that makes a statement to all of America and the world.
Dubbed ‘a moment within a movement,’ the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is a moment during the grassroots movement of Eucharistic revival for the Church in America. And it’s an unprecedented moment.
Twenty-four young Catholics, chosen by the National Eucharistic Congress via an intense selection process, travel full time from May to July on one of four routes - traveling a combined 6,500 miles by the time the four routes converge in Indianapolis; from New Haven (Connecticut) in the East, San Francisco (California) in the West, Brownsville (Texas) in the South, and Lake Itasca at the Mississippi headwaters (Minnesota) in the North.
God is still here waiting. And most of all, He does so in the Eucharist, where He humbly makes Himself small and accessible to us. Here, Christ awaits us and knocks on the door of our heart, with infinite love and compassion.
Weiss and twenty-three other Perpetual Pilgrims will travel their full routes - Weiss is part of the Marian route to the North - relying on the hospitality of Catholics throughout America. During this time of full-time pilgrimage, the pilgrims travel Sunday through Friday, while resting on Saturday to take part in service projects (i.e. Corporal Works of Mercy) in the communities they pass through. They are joined, where safe to do so, by the Eucharistic Caravan - people from across America who register to walk a portion of the public segments of the route. As the procession moves throughout the Catholic communities of America - celebrations and worship are commonplace.
It is the largest Eucharistic Pilgrimage in history - and it’s going to send a bold statement.
Weiss says that, during a time in America where lack of belief in the real presence of the Eucharistic Lord, declining church attendance, and other struggles challenge the faith, the root cause is simple. We are losing the “transcendent;” the sense of something greater for our lives:
“How often are we talking about loneliness epidemics, about rising suicide numbers, depression, trauma, and alienation? We have these problems because we have forgotten about God, a God who is Love.”
This forgotten love is what the world is grappling with, according to Weiss:
“Sometimes we think of Him (mostly as a distant or angry old man up in the sky). But is He actually the central element of our lives? Is He actually someone whom we converse with, whom we truly believe to be present at every moment of our life?” While every human worships something, many in the West have found meaning (or, lack of meaning) in “our own, self-constructed gods.”
“God is still here waiting. And most of all, He does so in the Eucharist, where He humbly makes Himself small and accessible to us. Here, Christ awaits us and knocks on the door of our heart with infinite love and compassion. I understand the core mission of the Eucharistic Revival to be just that: an encounter with the One who loves us, so as to be transformed into true sons and daughters of God.”
With the compassionate mission to reconnect the world with Christ’s intimate love, the Pilgrimage is truly a walk to Emmaus for the current world.
The story of Emmaus is a moving recount from the Gospel of Luke - After Jesus rose from the dead, but before he made himself known, he walked along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two disciples who didn’t recognize him. They talked about their life, the events of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion, and their stresses. But they didn’t recognize him. The walk continued until they sat down and Jesus broke the bread - then their eyes were open.
“God is still here waiting. And most of all, He does so in the Eucharist, where He humbly makes Himself small and accessible to us. Here, Christ awaits us and knocks on the door of our heart with infinite love and compassion. I understand the core mission of the Eucharistic Revival to be just that: an encounter with the One who loves us, so as to be transformed into true sons and daughters of God.”■