OCEAN CITY, Md. (OSV News) — As he began to process on a warm and breezy morning June 12 along the boardwalk, local Catholic Chris Cikanovich said, “I wanted to be a part of this and show what the Eucharist means to us.”
A Knight of Columbus for 51 years, Cikanovich rose early on a Friday morning to join dozens of others from the Diocese of Wilmington who took part in the 6 a.m. Eucharistic procession led by Bishop William E. Koenig. Processors with guitars led hymns, while others sang and prayed quietly along the way as the sun rose beyond the sand and the Atlantic Ocean beside them.
“To walk with Jesus on the boardwalk is amazing,” Kathleen Higgins told The Dialog, news outlet of the Diocese of Wilmington. “I never thought it would happen.”
‘Can we pray for me right now?’
The Eucharistic procession was part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, whose nine “perpetual pilgrims” spent June 11-12 in the Diocese of Wilmington, which covers Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The pilgrims joined the 17-block sunrise procession, ready to explain to onlookers what the procession was, and who the Eucharist is.
Eddie Gutierrez, a perpetual pilgrim from Phoenix, encountered two men on the boardwalk whom he said were “perhaps still wandering from the night before.”
“I introduced myself and told them who we were, and what we were doing,” he wrote in a blog post for OSV News. “I said, ‘We’re out here praying for people, praying for unity, brother,’ and one quickly and hastily responded, ‘Can we pray for me right now, please?'”
Gutierrez prayed with them on the spot.
“This is always my favorite encounter because it’s so natural and people are so hungry for prayer, and it’s a perfect opportunity to let them know Who and What they are seeking is Jesus in the Eucharist,” he wrote.
The young men asked Gutierrez to pray that they stop drinking and take ownership of their own lives, he said.
“They hugged each other and hugged me in a prayer circle, and we asked God to free them of any chains they had and asked him to guide them always. After we finished the prayer, they were smiling and grateful — they truly felt like beloved sons in that moment,” he wrote.
Historical connections
Similar opportunities for evangelization were plentiful as the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s caravan of perpetual pilgrims continued northward along the East Coast, heading from the Diocese of Wilmington and through the New Jersey dioceses of Camden (June 12-14) and Paterson (June 14-15), before taking a two-day private retreat at the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in New York City June 16-17.
Pilgrims’ first stop in the Diocese of Camden June 12 was for Mass and a Eucharistic procession at St. Mary’s Parish in Gloucester City, the location of the first European settlement in New Jersey, Fort Nassau, which was established in 1623. The parish, founded in 1848, is the diocese’s oldest.
At a June 13 Mass in Ventnor City, New Jersey, ahead of a second boardwalk procession with participants in the diocese’s senior care ministry, Bishop Joseph A. Williams of Camden noted that the perpetual pilgrims had, on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the day before, crossed the Delaware River “just like George Washington” to bring “the Heart of Jesus into South Jersey,” according to the Catholic Star Herald, the diocesan newspaper.
Another procession in Haddonfield, New Jersey, marked the place the New Jersey General Assembly met in 1777 to declare the colony an independent state. With the theme “One Nation Under God,” the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage has included sites important to the United States’ founding and Catholic history.
The Eucharist as one’s ‘way of life’
In the Diocese of Paterson, more than 1,700 people participated in a morning procession and Mass in Passaic, New Jersey, June 14. The next day included Divine Liturgy with the state’s Byzantine Catholic community in Woodland Park, followed by another procession leading to Mass that evening in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Paterson.
Writing in The Beacon, the publication of the Diocese of Paterson, Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney called the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage “just one of countless ways that we do what Jesus asks us to do as he sends us out to His people, the sheep of His flock, ‘As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand,'” referring to the Gospel reading from Sunday, June 14.
The celebration in Passaic featured witness talks by popular speakers Father Rafael Capó of the Archdiocese of Miami and Father Heriberto García from Jalisco state in Mexico, who focused on how lives are transformed when influenced by the Eucharist.
Father Capó told pilgrims, “Let the Eucharist influence your mission until it becomes your way of life — until you stop keeping Christ to yourself and share him with the world,” The Beacon reported.
The 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage launched on Pentecost Sunday, which coincided with Memorial Day weekend, from St. Augustine, Florida, home to the oldest site of a continuous Catholic presence in what is now the United States. Its caravan of perpetual pilgrims has traveled northward along the East Coast and will reach Maine before heading to Philadelphia for the Independence Day weekend.
At their retreat at the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in Manhattan, the pilgrims will have the opportunity to venerate the relics of St. Frances Cabrini, this year’s route patroness — which happens to fall on the same week Pope Leo XIV plans to venerate her heart in northern Italy.
The pilgrims will then spend June 18-20 in the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts, and June 20-23 in the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire.
Cathy Rossi writes for The Dialog, the publication of the Diocese of Wilmington. Michael Wojcik, news editor of The Beacon, publication of the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, and OSV News contributed to this story. Segments of this story were published in The Dialog and The Beacon and are distributed in partnership with OSV News.
