Thousands expected for Oct. 15 procession in Midtown Manhattan
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Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is returning to the streets of New York City.
One week from today, the Napa Institute will hold its annual Mass and Eucharistic Procession through Midtown Manhattan, in a public witness to the Eucharist – the source and summit of the Catholic faith.
Sponsored by Hallow, the Catholic prayer and meditation app, the Oct. 15 procession is expected to draw thousands of faithful into the streets of the city.
The event is scheduled to begin at St. Patrick's Cathedral where, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, participants will venerate a relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the young apostle of the Eucharist, who will be canonized in 2025.
Beginning at 3:00 p.m., Bp. Joseph Espaillat, auxiliary of New York, will lead devotees in a Holy Hour and Rosary.
Mass will follow at 4:00 p.m., with Abp. Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City as the celebrant; and Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, as the homilist.
The Eucharistic Procession is set to begin at 4:45 p.m. Pilgrims will accompany the Blessed Sacrament through the bustling heart of the city before returning to St. Patrick's Cathedral for Benediction. The event will officially conclude at 6:15 p.m., but veneration of the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis will continue until 8:30 p.m.
'QUITE A WITNESS'
The 2024 procession comes a year after its forerunner set social media ablaze.
Held just three days after Hamas terrorists murdered 1,195 people throughout southern Israel, the Oct. 10, 2023 procession captured the attention of countless onlookers online, inspiring Catholics and other Christians with its unapologetic witness, and provoking the curiosity of non-Christians with its pious display.
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, a Catholic, participated in the event and later published a reflection on her experience:
"The priests, the choir singing, the gold star – it was a spectacle and New Yorkers love spectacles. But the amazing thing was the curiosity, the quizzical faces, the wonder in some eyes, and the busy city folks on their way to and from this and to that – who stopped and watched, who got out their phones and recorded the sight. Some ran to get to the front to see what was up there.
A young priest next to me said, 'this is quite a witness.' Yes, it is, I nodded. He was right. Everyone was witnessing. I looked up and saw, block after block, workers in offices coming to their windows to look down and see what was happening. Many people were taking out their phones to record it all.
It was so peaceful, so absolutely still, as we walked under the neon lights of Radio City Music Hall, then turning left and going down Broadway under its spinning lights and flashing show signs, walking behind Jesus, and a parade of priests and nuns, as New York stopped to see. It didn’t feel like any other New York moment I can remember."
Upward of 5,000 people participated in the 2023 procession. Organizers are hoping for a similar turnout next Tuesday.
REKINDLING DEVOTION
The Oct. 15 march also comes almost five months after thousands of New York faithful filled the streets of their city for a series of Eucharistic processions – part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
That first-of-its-kind event, which featured four coast-to-coast, border-to-border processions celebrating the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, was launched simultaneously over Pentecost weekend in New Haven, Connecticut; San Francisco, California; Bemidji, Minnesota; and Brownsville, Texas. Over the course of the next two months, the processions covered some 6,000 miles and visited a thousand churches along the way – including more than a dozen in the Archdiocese of New York, the nation's second-largest, with more than 2.5 million Catholics – before converging in Indianapolis on July 16 for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, the capstone of the three-year-long Eucharistic Revival initiative.
Welcoming pilgrims to the archdiocese was Bp. Edmund Whalen, auxiliary of New York.
"We're here tonight because we know the Lord walks with us," Bp. Whalen said in his homily. "We have a hunger for the Lord; our city, our country, has a hunger for the Lord – and needs the Lord."
"Thank God for the gift of the Eucharist tonight," he continued. "Thank God for the gift of this time of renewal. Thank God for the Pilgrimage ... for those who, when the Pilgrimage passes them, will see the Lord – maybe for the first time in a long time – and something will move in their hearts."
"That's the leaven. That's the fermenting. That's the revival," Bp. Whalen observed. "Because if you and I thank God for this blessing of walking with Him, then long after the Pilgrimage is past, we will continue to let the Eucharist nourish us – and nourish our world."
For more information on the 2024 Eucharistic Procession in New York, click here.
Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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