What would a road trip with Jesus and Mary be like? These young Catholics are finding out

 

Houston, Texas, May 24, 2024 / 16:44 pm (CNA).

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be one of the apostles and journey, eat, joke, and live out your daily life beside Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary?

Or perhaps you may have wondered about a more modern question: What would it be like to go on a road trip with Jesus in the car?

These questions are being answered for 23 young “perpetual pilgrims” as they embark on trips that will collectively span the entire contiguous United States as part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.

After crossing the country with the Eucharistic Christ, these young Catholics will culminate their journeys in Indianapolis for the first U.S. National Eucharistic Congress in 83 years.

On their journey, the pilgrims are scheduled to meet thousands of people and cross mountains, deserts, and some of America’s greatest landmarks. But with all these grand and historic events happening, it is in small, ordinary moments in the van with the Eucharistic Jesus that the pilgrims are finding some of their greatest joy.

Already being dubbed by some as “monstrance mobiles,” the pilgrims are traveling portions of the journey in small white vans, which are just big enough for them and a pedestal upon which Christ in the monstrance can be placed.

As if traveling the country with the real presence of Jesus in the car was not incredible enough already, the seven perpetual pilgrims on the southern Juan Diego Route are getting an added bonus: his Blessed Mother.

Beside the monstrance is an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, crafted in Mexico and gifted to the pilgrimage by the Mexican Diocese of Matamoros. The image will be carried by the pilgrims right behind the Eucharist in every procession they lead from south Texas to Indiana.

Framed in gold and portraying the serene beauty of the Virgin Mary as she appeared to St. Juan Diego on Tepeyac in 1531, the image is a unique contribution to the pilgrimage.

Joshua Velasquez, an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame and one of the Juan Diego pilgrims, told CNA that the image represents the special friendship between the Dioceses of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros. And with Our Lady of Guadalupe being made the patroness of the entire national pilgrimage, the image also represents the close ties of faith between the Church in Mexico and the U.S.

“It’s really a blessing that we get to carry her image with us,” he said.

According to Velasquez, the way the image of Our Lady is positioned in the van appears “as if she’s looking directly towards the tabernacle, towards her Son, reminding us to look towards him always.”

But what is it really like to travel with Jesus in the car?

Velasquez called it “a very modern privilege.”

“There’s often moments where you can’t help but be drawn into prayer because of how amazing and how unique this experience is, to not only walk with God but drive with God.”

But does one feel like they must be quiet and contemplative all the time?

“Practically speaking,” Velasquez said he has found that “it’s both an invitation to prayer but also a really unique way to live out life in a similar way to how the apostles would have lived with Jesus.”

“They were in the presence of our Lord and Savior, our God, but were having fellowship with him,” he explained. “Being able to sit in a van with Our Lord is very much a reminder of the fellowship that we have with him.”

Though a unique privilege, Velasquez hopes that many more throughout the country will be inspired by the pilgrimage to share in the same closeness with Christ.

He asked for Catholics across the country to pray that each person who sees them processing by, whether in big cities, small towns, or the countryside, will be moved. He hopes that like how St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was converted to the faith by a passing Eucharistic procession, people across the country will be moved by their encounter with the love of God.

“Us perpetual pilgrims get to be with Our Lord for two months. But as we go on the pilgrimage and as we pass through these places, people spend maybe a day or two, an hour, a second even,  as we’re walking by on the streets,” he said. “I just pray that the next St. Elizabeth to answer, that the next saints, will have that moment of encounter with Our Lord as we walk with him.”