The National Eucharistic Revival being promoted by U.S. Catholic bishops came to rural St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on June 8, as hundreds of people attended an evening Mass at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church in Leonardtown and then walked together in an evening Candlelight Eucharistic Procession for several blocks to the town square and processed back to the church for Benediction.
At the Mass, Father Raymond Schmidt – the pastor of St. John Francis Regis Parish in Hollywood, Maryland – noted in his homily, “Tonight by your presence, you are preparing for a revival. As you know, the Church in the United States has embarked on a three-year Eucharistic revival.”
The congregation crowding the church included about 250 people of different ages and backgrounds, including families with children, and also older Catholics.
“We will light a candle after this Eucharist that symbolizes our willingness to say, ‘I’ve always believed, now I will act like I believe,’” Father Schmidt said. “It symbolizes our willingness to simply say, ‘The Eucharist changes everything.’”
The priest added, “Jesus will be walking with us through St. Mary’s County square.”
Father Schmidt noted that as a seminarian and then as a priest, he intellectually accepted the Catholic Church’s teaching that Jesus’s Body, Blood, soul and divinity are present in the Eucharist, but he added that the devotion to Eucharistic Adoration that he witnessed among young people at his parish’s summer program helped deepen his own faith in the Eucharist from being passive to being active.
Referencing that day’s poor air quality from smoky air drifting over the Washington area from Canadian wildfires, the priest noted that Pope St. Paul VI had warned about the Church being affected by “the smoke of Satan” that sows doubt.
Father Schmidt cautioned people against approaching Mass and the Eucharist like “a spectator sport,” and encouraged them to act on their belief in the Eucharist.
The priest said Jesus is present in every Eucharist placed upon people’s lips or in their hands, and every Eucharist contains the memorial of Jesus’s passion, death and resurrection.
“We are present to the mystery that He is here with us, in his active, amazing passing from this life to eternal life,” Father Schmidt said.
St. John’s pastor said that by their participation in the Candlelight Eucharistic Procession, the people could help “take back the night.”
“We’re going to process with Jesus Christ who is with us,” Father Schmidt said, adding, “He wants us to do more than act like we believe. He wants us to step forth and act and to walk with Him. He’s with us right now.”
The intentions at the Mass included a prayer that believers everywhere might seek the Eucharist with greater faith and reverence, and that the light of Christ might shine in the world through the Catholic Church and illuminate the truths of the Gospel.
The main celebrant at the Mass, Father David Beaubien, the pastor of St. Aloysius Parish, led the congregation in quiet Eucharistic Adoration at the end of Mass, and then carried a monstrance containing the Eucharist as he processed down the church’s center aisle and then stepped outside. Altar servers helped people throughout the congregation light small candles that they held in their hands, and then they slowly filed outside the church doors and onto Washington Street.
As priests took turns walking forward and holding the Eucharist aloft in a monstrance, the crowd of people followed behind carrying small lit candles in the darkness, sometimes walking silently and sometimes praying and singing hymns. They walked along the darkened street past a variety of businesses, including pubs crowded with patrons, and also businesses closed for the night, including a bakery, and medical, dental, insurance and realty offices.
Then the Candlelight Eucharistic Procession returned to St. Aloysius Church for Benediction.
Five priests, four deacons and about 20 women religious from the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará participated in the Candlelight Eucharistic Procession, along with the lay people who had attended the Mass. Members of the Knights of Columbus St. Mary’s Council #1470 and the 4th Degree Color Corps of the Father Andrew White Assembly helped lead and direct the procession.
Afterward Father Beaubien praised that public witness of faith, saying, “I was impressed by the participation of several of our St. Mary’s County parishes, all expressing the same Eucharistic faith, which when enhanced by a procession inspires hope that we as Catholics can make a difference in our society.”
The National Eucharistic Revival began with a year of diocesan revival from June 19, 2022 to June 11, 2023, and is continuing with a year of parish revival from June 11, 2023 to July 17, 2024. A National Eucharistic Congress is being planned for July 17-21, 2024 in Indianapolis. Then July 21, 2024 through Pentecost 2025 has been designated as a year of going out on mission to share the gift of Christ in the Eucharist.
Information on the National Eucharistic Revival can be found online at:
