by Maria Wiering

In full vestments and flanked by pines, Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens held high the Eucharist in a golden monstrance, making the sign of the cross over the stream that flowed gently from the placid lake behind him. Next to him, a signpost read, “Here 1,475 FT above the ocean, the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2,552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.”

As the bishop had noted that May 19 morning at the opening of an outdoor Pentecost Mass, a French priest explorer had once named the Mississippi River “the River of the Immaculate Conception,” making it a fitting point from which to launch the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, an eight-week journey with the Eucharist.

By this day, all four groups of “perpetual pilgrims” on the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s four routes had begun their treks — the other three launching from points in San Francisco; Cali New Haven, Connecticut; Brownsville, Texas — that would converge in Indianapolis for the July 17-21 National Eucharistic Congress, the highlight of the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year initiative launched in 2022 by the U.S. bishops to inspire a deeper love and reverence for Jesus in the Eucharist.

At the Mississippi River headwaters, people silently knelt in the gravel before the Eucharist until Bishop Cozzens, bishop of Crookston, Minnesota, began walking with the monstrance toward the trailhead and into the woods of Itasca State Park.

For the next 5 miles, the pilgrims walked behind the Eucharist, alternating between hymns, psalms and contemplative silence. The Crookston Diocese’s four seminarians held a processional cross, a pair of candles and an ombrellino, a “little umbrella” used above the Eucharist in processions.

As the Marian Route pilgrims passed through the wooded state park, cyclists and hikers respectfully stopped and waited. Some dropped to their knees.