Father Rob Clements got some interesting comments when he started leading Eucharistic processions at one of his parish assignments in the 1990s.
“You’re a throwback.”
“This isn’t the 1950s.”
“It just feels like we’re going backwards,” one mom of altar boys told him.
But when he became the chaplain at Arizona State University in 2011, he could see a gap in the students’ spiritual life, for which a remedy was needed.
“When I got here, it was a glaring need, because, really, I just think there was a distance in familiarity with Eucharistic adoration,” Father Clements told the Register….
Arizona State is one of several secular colleges in the United States that have implemented periodic Eucharistic processions in recent years. The list includes Columbia University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Illinois, the University of Alabama and Texas A&M, among others.
At Arizona State, Eucharistic processions take place on the Solemnity of Christ the King in November and on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in the spring. (Other processions take place on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September and on Palm Sunday….)
There are three types of reactions, said Ben Power, a senior who has participated in them.
One is spontaneous reverence. Some people join in. Father Clements said he has seen people get out of their cars at a stoplight and kneel on the pavement.
Another is negative. Two years ago, an atheist engineering student told the people assembled near an altar outside the engineering dorm that their God is not real, but only a man-made concoction, Power said. Father Clements said a couple of years ago a woman started shouting obscenities. The students started saying the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, and she took off.
The third type is somewhere in between.
“Intrigue is probably the most common reaction,” Power said. “People cock their heads. They’re kind of mystified by it, in an interesting way, because it’s different from anything they’ve ever seen in their life….”
St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M has held Eucharistic processions in October 2021 and in the fall of 2022 and plans to hold another during Easter Week in 2024.
About 700 to 800 students participated in the previous two, said Father Will Straten, the pastor….
While most participants prayed the Rosary, about 30 students and staff walked in front, handing out fliers to onlookers on campus, explaining what a Eucharistic procession is and inviting them to join. At the halfway point, at the plaza in front of Memorial Student Center, participants kneeled, sang three hymns, stayed silent for five minutes, and then processed back to St. Mary’s, he said.
Columbia University’s Catholic chaplaincy started holding Eucharistic processions on the Solemnities of Christ the King and Corpus Christi last school year. They begin after Sunday Mass at the Church of Notre Dame, which is at the corner of Morningside Drive and West 114th Street in upper Manhattan in New York City, and continue along public streets and into the heart of the campus, known as College Walk.
The idea of holding a Eucharistic procession on campus at first concerned Karina Magnus, a Catholic student there, who sought reassurance from the chaplain, Father Roger Landry.
She went ahead and participated, taking pictures during the first one and walking in the second. She was surprised by the reaction from onlookers, who saw several dozen people walking with a priest wearing vestments under a canopy holding a bronze monstrance bearing a consecrated Host exposed behind transparent glass and singing hymns.
“Such a secular university, we expected a little bit of backlash. I don’t think we really got that,” Magnus, 21, a senior and biochemistry major, told the Register….
Magnus said the processions were important moments in her spiritual life. She is discerning whether to start a doctoral program in biochemistry or to become a campus missionary through Fellowship of Catholic University Students (known as FOCUS) after graduation.
From the National Catholic Register
Bravo! It takes courage to process on campus but what an important witness this is. In my 31 years at Pasadena City College, I never saw such a procession even though there is a Catholic Church across the street. Let us pray the movement grows.
The LifeTeen leaders who have been promoting that youth ministry program and LifeTeen bands with rock music at Mass now have to contend with the reality that after three decades of trying, their program has been a failure.
Empty pews at Mass. Hardly anyone under the age of 45 attends Mass. All over the country, youth ministry and youthful liturgical music have been failures. If they worked the way the sellers of LifeTeen materials would have you believe, then churches would be packed with young people who had been formed by LifeTeen.
Where are they?
Big Youth Ministry is Big Business. But it’s a sham ministry.
The priest at this university seems to have the right idea about how to fix things.
What’s your axe to grind with LifeTeen? They promote Adoration and their catechetical materials are solidly Catholic. These Eucharistic processions are great. But, why do you feel the need to be critical of LifeTeen, not the point of this article? I know teens who attended LIfeTeen and continue to practice the faith and others who’ve walked away. And, the same is true for Confirmation programs, Catholic homeschool programs, the TLM and other activities. Let’s do anything and everything to reach our young people, by the grace of God. And, He will still respect their free wills. May those who’ve left return, like the prodigal son.
A nice change from the anti-Semitic marches of late.
Distance in familiarity. Great term.
What I have noticed here and on Youtube and other places is that conformity to the Catholic Church is rare.
There are people who get away with saying that they are in conformity to the Catholic Faith while rebelling against the Catholic Church.
I assume they get away with it because people do not really know the Catholic Faith because of course you cannot be in conformity with the Catholic Faith and out of conformity with the Catholic Church.
Why do people fall for this stuff?
If they knew the Catholic Faith better, they would not. I like the term “distance in familiarity”.
They are very familiar with some teachings of the Church and the Lord and completely distant from others.
I am sure it is true of all of us.
If people don’t see Eucharist processions and Churches don’t have Adoration, people won’t know about them. You can’t love and practice what you don’t know.
Reverence and scorn, yes, our Faith elicits both, even simultaneously. May God bless these young adults and those who minister to them.
This is inspiring. Highly secularized universities, such as Columbia Univ., Vanderbilt Univ., Univ. of Illinois, and many others– are scornful of religious belief, are liberal and “woke”– and students and professors need to return to God. In 2009, I was thrilled when Bishop Olmsted ousted the liberal, LGBT-friendly Dominican Order from ASU campus ministry— this situation needed to happen, for decades. Good for faithful Bishop Olmsted. Not sure what the gay-friendly Bishop Dolan, originally from the San Diego Diocese, might do, however. Bp. Olmsted was outstanding, but retired in 2022– a terrible loss.
Over 20,000 people– including myself– signed a petition of One Million Moms, to protest the nationally televised NYC Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — because this year, the parade will feature an LGBT, transgender, non-binary extravaganza! It would be wonderful, to have a Thanksgiving Day NYC Eucharistic Procession from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to counter this terrible evil.
Just don’t watch it. There are lots of things on television that are immoral. Ignore it. Your blood pressure will thank you.
You have a Chistian duty to Our Lord to get busy, get involved, and help fight these evils afflicting American homes and families, severely harming your children. Do not just stuff yourself with food, and passively watch filth on TV, on Thanksgiving Day. You must go help Christ– and defend faith, family, good values, and decency! What are your children getting, on the computer, on TV, or down at the local school, the local library, and everywhere else? You will have peace with God, if you do the right thing, fight Evil, and seek to protect your family, children, Church and country. I, myself, am going to call Macy’s in NYC tomorrow, and give my complaint. Also, I am going down to the Macy’s store on Union Square, in SF, and will fill out a complaint form. I always do that, when I see obscene books and materials in the children’s section of the library, or see advertisements of an upcoming Drag Queen Story Hour. Guess what– the employees always tell me that they agree with me– and wish they could change things. Every little bit you can do, helps– along with prayers.
One Million Moms is a division of the American Family Association. They fight indecency, evils and filth currently assaulting American families in our society. You can read more about them, and join them, at https://onemillionmoms.com.