Juan Diego Pantoja, a member of the youth group, said the experience of walking outside with the Eucharist was “very new and beautiful, something that I’ve never done before.”
Rachael Kubick, who homeschools her five children as part of a group of over 250 homeschool families at Holy Trinity parish in Gainesville, Virginia, prepared her children for the procession by teaching them about the Eucharistic miracles.
Kubick, a former public school teacher who found homeschool to be a way she could form her children “the way you see fit,” said that her relationship with the Eucharist helps her with “a daily change of heart” to have patience with her kids and find strength to wake up three hours earlier than the family.
Despite the palpable enthusiasm for the Eucharist among Saturday’s crowd, few said they had participated in any revival programming over the past two years. Kubick and her husband, Andrew, who works in bioethics, were alone among those RNS spoke with who said they would be attending the congress in July. Several who would not be attending cited financial reasons for skipping it. (While the congress has announced a capacity for almost $1 million in scholarships, those funds do not cover lodging or airfare.)
Jane Peworchik, of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Lake Ridge, Virginia, said she had participated in the parish’s revival study group since April, in addition to Eucharistic adoration, and believed that the power of prayer would help achieve the revival’s goals of reaching the uncommitted. “God answers all our prayers, maybe not in our time when we want it, but he’s got a plan for us,” she said.
Of her decision to come join the pilgrimage, Peworchik said, “If you love God, you’re going to be here.”
This article originally appeared here.
