MARYS RIVER, Ga. (OSV News) — Under clear blue skies and with a warm wind blowing, Jesus in the Eucharist spent part of Memorial Day on the water traveling from Florida to Georgia as part of the second day of this summer’s National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
After processing from St. Michael Church in Fernandina Beach, Florida, to the nearby waterfront, Bishop Erik T. Pohlmeier of St. Augustine offered a Eucharistic blessing to his diocese as the pilgrimage departed from the Diocese of St. Augustine and headed north toward the Diocese of Savannah via boat.
St. Augustine kickoff
The 2026 pilgrimage, which will travel up the East Coast for six weeks before ending in Philadelphia on the July 4 weekend, began May 24 at the historic Mission Nombre de Dios and the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche in St. Augustine.
After overnight Eucharistic adoration at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, the pilgrimage departed for Jacksonville and then went farther north to the quiet beach town on Amelia Island.
Accompanying Bishop Pohlmeier on the boat with the Blessed Sacrament were priests, deacons, seminarians, and men and women religious. Members of the group Sons of Our Lady knelt before the sun-drenched golden monstrance and prayed the rosary. Also present — singing, praying and simply appreciating the unique experience — were the perpetual pilgrims, nine young adults who are traveling the entire St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Route with the Blessed Sacrament.
“I’ve never been with Jesus before on a boat, like the Blessed Sacrament,” Mary Carmen Zakrajsek, a perpetual pilgrim from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, told OSV News, adding that the experience was “living the Gospels … in a very tangible way.
“It’s an opportunity to really witness what the disciples did 2,000 years ago,” she said.
Boat procession
Sailing behind the boat with the Blessed Sacrament were two vessels typically used for touring Amelia Island, as well as some smaller, private boats, including one filled with seminarians, dressed in cassocks and surplices. The main boat was flanked on all sides by police boats in an impressive escort up St. Marys River.
Though strong winds whipped the vessel as it approached land, the monstrance, standing upon a makeshift altar, stood strong.
On the St. Marys shoreline, crowds of people waited to welcome the pilgrimage to its next destination. Among them were Bishop Stephen D. Parkes of Savannah, who received the Blessed Sacrament from Bishop Pohlmeier on the dock before the procession continued to the nearby parish.
Along the route, onlookers stopped on sidewalks and leaned out of car windows to ask what was going on. Those traveling with the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage explained that Jesus was present, and they extended invitations to follow him.
The pilgrims expect to attend Mass, adoration and other events in the Diocese of Savannah until May 28, when they continue north to the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina.
Gretchen R. Crowe is editor in chief of OSV News.
