Because the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ, those who partake of the sacrament not only recall the sacrifice of Jesus, but also become part of His saving actions, the faithful attending a June 6 Vigil Mass for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi were told.
“In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us,” said Bishop-elect Gary Studniewski. “In this way we become one with Him and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy that awaits us.”
Bishop-elect Studniewski – whose episcopal ordination as an auxiliary bishop of Washington is scheduled for July 7 – was principal celebrant and homilist of the Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
By instituting the Eucharist, Jesus “wanted for us to know, to see and to even feel that He is still among us not just a symbol, not just half a locket with the promise we will get the other half when we get to heaven, but His real body and blood right here,” Bishop-elect Studniewski said.
“And we do more than just see and touch His body and blood, we take Jesus into ourselves as food for our perilous journey,” the bishop-elect said.
The Mass, marking the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ also known as Corpus Christi, was attended by close to 1,000 people and celebrates the true presence of the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
It was offered as part of the June 5 and 6 stop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington of the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage that is traveling from Florida to Maine and back to Philadelphia as the United States celebrates its 250th birthday.
The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage conducted events throughout the city of Washington during its stay here.
“We will never get enough earthly bread. Earthly bread will never totally satisfy our hunger,” Bishop-elect Studniewski said at the National Shrine Mass. “What we really want is the bread of God’s life that satisfies our deepest hunger.”
The Eucharist, he said, is the “particular way” Catholic Christians remember all that Christ has done for them.
“In the Eucharist we not only remember what Jesus did to rescue us from sin and death … but we participate in the saving events which are re-presented here at the altar,” Bishop-elect Studniewski said. “Jesus wanted to leave us something – some way of being present not just to those at the Last Supper, but to all who had come to believe in Him. He left us the Eucharist.”
He noted that “what Jesus did in the Upper Room for His Apostles, He does now for us at the altar through the ministry of a priest.”
In receiving Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, the bishop-elect said, “we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ to participate in the very life of Jesus – to have a share in the life of God Himself. It is to participate in eternal life.”
The Mass was one of several archdiocesan events held in conjunction with the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage – with the theme “One Nation Under God” – began May 24 in St. Augustine, Florida. It will have processed more 2,200 miles through most of the 13 original colonies before concluding July 4th weekend in Philadelphia.
The pilgrimage has been placed under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American citizen to be canonized a saint.
Prior to the Mass at the National Shrine, the nine perpetual pilgrims who are accompanying the Most Blessed Sacrament on the 43-day pilgrimage were at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Northeast Washington, D.C. to participate in an afternoon of prayer, Eucharistic Adoration, recitation of the rosary and a Divine Mercy holy hour.
Several perpetual pilgrims spoke during the event at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.
John Paul Flynn, a native of the Washington, D.C., area who is a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Bowie, Maryland and a student at The Catholic University of America, said, “accompanying Jesus is a one-of-a-kind experience, a really beautiful experience.”
“We are having Jesus in the very center of our nation’s capital,” he said. “We are bringing Jesus to where all the decisions are made.”
Saying he was blessed to “travel with Jesus every single day,” Flynn called it very special to “see Jesus walking our streets, walking the same steps I have walked.”
As he travels up in the East Coast, he said it has become “very transparent to me these past couple of weeks, the universality of the Church.”
He said, regardless of what part of the country he is in, “the call is for all of us to become a saint, to go to heaven, and to be with Jesus forever. And the best way to do that is through the sacraments.”
He added that one of his goals was for the pilgrimage to “spark a revival and spark a desire” in people to go to the daily Mass and to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament in their own parish.
Zachary Dotson, a parish employee in Indiana and one of the perpetual pilgrims, said it was hope that people recognize the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament because “we don’t fall in procession behind a piece of bread. This is our Lord and Savior.”
“Everyone asks, ‘What is the path, what is the northern light?’ And I say, ‘It is Jesus’,” Dotson said.
Perpetual pilgrim Raymond Martinez II, a seminarian for the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, called it “a powerful witness to our faith to unite our country under God.”
As he travels with the Blessed Sacrament, he said “seeing people‘s faith and desire for the Lord is very powerful to me” and has fostered a “sense of deeper trust in Him (Jesus). He is here with me in my fears and my struggles.”
For perpetual pilgrim Mary Carmen Zakrajsek, a youth faith formation director in Indiana, her goal in accompanying the Eucharist on this journey is to help people understand that “Jesus in the Eucharist is the answer to every lonely heart. Jesus in the Eucharist is the only answer to everything.”
She added that accompanying the Eucharist also proves that “Jesus walks this earth. He has not abandoned us.”
“He doesn’t come to us only when we are worthy. He comes to us simply because He wants to be with us,” she said.
The stop in the nation’s capital as the United States prepares for its 250th birthday is especially poignant, the perpetual pilgrims said.
Dotson noted that commemorating the nation’s history ties together with bringing the Eucharist across the country because “our nation is on pilgrimage. We strive every day to make a more perfect union.”
Zakrajsek noted “there was something so powerful when God comes to you. It is powerful to know our God is not a distant God.”
Sarah Houde, the vice president of events and operations for the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, noted that “we are one nation under God. Love of God and love of country go hand-in-hand and should go hand-in-hand.”
“It is a great blessing to be here in the nation’s capital,” she said. “People say what happens in Washington, D.C. is heard around the world and that makes this all the more significant. People are hungry for an encounter with Christ… People are searching for something real. People are longing to be free.”
In welcoming the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage to the National Shrine, Msgr. Walter R. Rossi, the basilica’s rector, noted that the pilgrimage “comes to the heart of the nation’s capital and here to Mary’s shrine, America’s Catholic Church and the patronal church of the United States.”
“May Christ draw closer to us this evening through his Eucharistic presence and may Mary Immaculate, the mother of the Eucharist, intercede in all our needs,” he prayed.
Bishop-elect Studniewski said the Mass was a time to “gather in prayer and in faith united in love for the Eucharist and our desire to draw closer to our Lord.”
“Today we rekindle our appreciation for this precious gift of the Eucharist, to be ever thankful for this sacrament,” he said. “It is the sacrament that gives us eternal life. It is the sacrament that give us communion with God and with one other.”
Calling it “a joy and a privilege to celebrate with you today,” Bishop-elect Studniewski reminded the faithful that “we have received the precious body … actually by that reception we become Christ in a way for others.”
“The Christ you received, we are going to take out into the world and we are going to show God’s love by the Christ that we share,” he said.
After the pilgrimage departed Washington, it headed to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which in 1789 became this nation’s first Catholic diocese, encompassing the 13 original states.
