‘It brought me here’: Third annual Eucharistic procession held in Washington, D.C.

 

The Blessed Sacrament is held aloft during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025 / Credit: Tessa Gervasini

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 17, 2025 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

The Catholic Information Center (CIC) on Saturday held its third annual Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C. in which more than 1,000 participants processed through the downtown area with the Blessed Sacrament.

Father Charles Trullols, the director of the CIC, told CNA the day was “perfect.”

The faithful kneel during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini
The faithful kneel during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini

The event kicked off with a Mass at CIC’s chapel. The group of attendees was so large that it could not fit inside the chapel itself, sending people to watch the Mass on a screen outside where they were eventually brought Holy Communion.

The procession began after Mass and was led by the crossbearer, candle-bearers, religious sisters, and young children who recently received their first Holy Communion and who laid rose petals ahead of the Eucharist.

Trullols carried the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance and held it high for the crowd to witness and follow. A choir, priests, and lay people followed behind through the downtown area.

Women religious process during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini
Women religious process during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini

As the group walked, attendees said prayers and sang hymns. Some bystanders joined in and others kneeled as the procession passed by.

Gerard McNair-Lewis, a development associate at CIC, noted that the event is held during May, “the month of Mary.”

“What better way to celebrate Mary than to honor her son’s Eucharistic presence?” he said.

The group processed down K Street. The Eucharist in the procession was “the closest tabernacle to the White House,” McNair-Lewis said. It’s “a great testament that religious things happen in our nation’s capital.”

The faithful celebrate Mass prior to the Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini
The faithful celebrate Mass prior to the Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini

Throughout the procession the group stopped at different locations to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament and hear the gospel. At one stop, Monsignor Charles Pope spoke outside the veteran’s affairs office.

Pope praised veterans and the military, pointing out that “many put their lives on the line so that others can live in greater security and freedom.” He said these individuals “imitate Jesus who lays down His life so we can live eternally.”

Krista Anderson, an attendee from Virgina, told CNA that her husband Micheal Simpson was a staff sergeant for the United States Army who was killed in Afghanistan.

She felt the moment to honor veterans was a message from God.

Craig Carter flew into Washington for a work trip and “happened to see [the procession].”

A Protestant, Carter said God “wanted me to come to D.C. early just to pray.” He joined the procession, he said, because God “has been working on [his] heart.”

“Adoration has always been super special to me in my Catholic faith,” Lydia Vaccaro, a young attendee from Virgina, told CNA. “So it brought me here.”

The Blessed Sacrament is held aloft during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini
The Blessed Sacrament is held aloft during a Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C., Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Tessa Gervasini

“It’s a beautiful witness,” said attendee Hannah Hermann.

“I like being in front of processions like this, where you’re out and people see,” Hermann said. “I’ve heard conversion stories from people who witness a procession.”

“The procession was beautiful,” Trullols told CNA after the event concluded. “Every year it is getting better.”

“We know how to do it better and it’s growing – the quantity of people, the attention, and also the way we organize the liturgy and the music,” Trullols said.


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2 Comments

  1. I was there! I made the journeu into DC on a glorious late spring morning. Because the procession was on mid-city streets and sidewalks, the crowd was stretched out so impossible for me to estimate how many were in attendance. Many thanks to the Catholic Information Center for a fine job of organization and preparation. For instance, everyone who wanted a kneeling pad could easily find one. Remarkably energetic First Communicants spreadig rose petsls before our. Eucharistic Lord, red and white petsls were everywhere.

  2. Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ wrote on imitating Christ’s patient charity in his book With Us Today: On the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, Ave Maria Univ. Communications, Ypsilanti, Mich 2000 p.144:

    In the biographies of the saints, we can trace three grades or levels of patience which we should try to practice with the help of our Eucharistic Lord.
    The first level is to bear difficulties, especially those caused by others. We should do so without interior complaint. Avoiding exterior complaining may be good business, but it is far from real patience. True patience bears its difficulties without interior complaining as well.
    The second level is to use hardships to make progress in virtue. We all want to grow in sanctity. What Christian does not? But then we look at the price tag and say, “Oh no!” The price of sanctity is patience, and the ground of patience is pain, and the principal cause of pain is people. But we can endure our hardships and pain in order to grow in sanctity.
    The third level of Christian patience is not only to patiently bear but to embrace the pain others cause us without complaint, because faith tells us this is the price of growing in sanctity. The highest degree of patience for which we should all pray is to actually desire the Cross and the afflictions out of love of God. We should accept with spiritual joy these pains and these crosses which especially come from other people. Yes, with joy! Our whole body may be trembling and our souls may be shivering as well. But spiritual joy is joy in the will, joy that comes from the mind and knowing that I am doing the will of God.
    Why? Just as we pray while making The Way of the Cross, “We adore Thee, O Christ and we praise Thee, because by thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.” We believe that by joining our sufferings in patient charity with the glorified Christ in the Eucharist, we are cooperating with Him in saving a sinful world.

    (The book has in bold the 1st word in each of these two phrases: interior complaint, and desire the Cross. wb)

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