MANHATTAN, May 25 — The Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage journeyed to the Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini in Washington Heights for a Mass that focused on her Eucharistic witness and invoked her intercession to help Catholics in the United States, during this Eucharistic Revival, to become, like her, true Eucharistic Missionaries.
The Shrine was standing room only for the bilingual Mass in Spanish and English celebrated by Father Roger J. Landry, chaplain for the 65 days of the Seton Route, and concelebrated by Fr. Peter Martyr Yungwirth, OP, pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, who organized the Manhattan part of the Pilgrimage for the Archdiocese of New York, and five other priests.
Before the Mass, Shrine director Julia Attaway welcomed everyone in attendance and gave a brief overview of St. Frances Cabrini's Eucharistic Life.
Father Landry, in his homily, built on what Attaway had described, using the saint's words to show how she believed she could do all things in the Eucharistic Lord who strengthened her.
He illustrated how she exemplified the four pillars of the parish phase of the Eucharistic Revival in a way, he said, Catholics today can learn from.
The first pillar is reinvigorated worship at Mass and he illustrated her love for the Mass and her appreciation of what takes place in the Mass. She was a daily Mass goer with her sister Rosa well before she was able to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. She was someone who longed to receive him every day, mourning the times on her transatlantic journeys when there were no priests on board equipped to celebrate Mass, and how, despite her fear of the water, she once got into a row boat off the coast of Panama to row in for Mass.
The second pillar is personal encounter with Jesus in Eucharistic adoration and prayer. Fr. Landry said as a girl she and Rosa would after Mass make a Holy Hour and that that love for time with Jesus never waned. As a religious superior, it was her time with Jesus that not only gave her joy and energy, but often the light needed to address various decisions she needed to make.
The third pillar is charity and Fr. Landry said that she lived her own Eucharistic outpouring in founding schools, orphanages, and hospitals, in order to care for multitudes in need. He stated that charity can never remain a la carte but must be organized in order to meet needs that go beyond what individuals alone can do.
The fourth pillar is mission and she shows the zeal of a missionary. Like St. Paul, she experienced woe if she could not share the Gospel, but not understood simply as words but in a particular way as the Gospel incarnate, the Word made flesh, still present for us in the most holy Eucharist.
Father Landry stated that St. Frances Cabrini is a model of the whole Church of a truly Eucharistic life and said that that is where she got her courage, wisdom and energy, despite various physical limitations.
To listen to an audio recording of Father Landry's homily, click here.
After Mass, a large Eucharistic procession formed outside the Shrine that proceded south to Central Park and ultimately to St. Vincent Ferrer Parish.
