Archbishop Charles C. Thompson elevates the Eucharist during the Opening Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis, marking the official launch of the St. Katharine Drexel Route. May 18, 2025. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

CNA Newsroom, May 18, 2025 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

The 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage kicked off Sunday, May 18, with an opening Mass in downtown Indianapolis where an estimated 1,000 people, including many young families, joined Archbishop Charles C. Thompson to officially launch this year’s pilgrimage.

“Our faith is not something to be lived just within the walls of the Church. The Mass ends with being sent out,” the archbishop told EWTN News before the Mass began at at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. “The Eucharist is transforming. And it transforms us, and through us it transforms others.” 

The 2025 pilgrimage is a continuation of last year’s four simultaneous Eucharistic pilgrimages, which converged in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July 2024. The pilgrimages are part of the National Eucharistic Revival, a multi-year plan launched by the U.S. bishops to strengthen faith in Jesus Christ and the Eucharist. 

Eight young adult pilgrims called “Perpetual Pilgrims” will accompany the Blessed Sacrament for the 3,300-mile mile trek this year named for St. Katharine Drexel (1858–1955), which will culminate on Corpus Christi Sunday, June 22, in Los Angeles. 

At the opening Mass was Matthew Heidenreich, a 2024 Marian Route pilgrim, who said he wanted to come out and support this year’s pilgrims. “Something like this, a pilgrimage that goes across the country, the Lord just uses that to create powerful, powerful moments that will ultimately bring so many people to him, and to the Church,” he told EWTN News.

The University of Alabama student from Columbus, Ohio, also shared how his life has changed since making last year’s pilgrimage. 

“My relationship and the way that I walk with the Lord has completely changed,” he said. “Just like experiencing that day to day walk with him, and realizing how much he wants to enter into every part of my life, it transforms the way you view every moment, and the way you enter into life. Because you just know the Lord is with you, he’s walking with you, he wants to be there.”

The Drexel route will process through 10 states — including California and Texas — as well as through 20 Catholic dioceses and four Eastern Catholic eparchies. Along the way will be opportunities to encounter Jesus including daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, Eucharistic processions, witness talks, and fellowship meals with the Perpetual Pilgrims. 

In keeping with the ongoing Jubilee Year of Hope in the Catholic Church, the focus of the Drexel Route is on “hope and healing,” with visits planned not only to churches but also to prisons and nursing homes. 

“[The Eucharistic pilgrimage] is bringing a Christ centered focus to a world that is in desperate need of meaning and purpose and healing,” said Archbishop Thompson. “That’s what this procession is all about — Jesus Christ, the way the truth and the life, being proclaimed, being adored, being worshipped. The one who leads us and unites us.”