A multi-week pilgrimage bringing Jesus in the Eucharist to cities along the East Coast as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday is an opportunity to pray for peace and revival in the country, according to a Minnesota-based Catholic bishop involved with the event.
The 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which begins May 24 and concludes over the Fourth of July weekend, is themed “One Nation Under God,” which refers to the Pledge of Allegiance but doesn’t signify a political focus, according to Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston.
“At a moment of heightened tension in our nation and around the world, we join our Holy Father, Pope Leo in speaking Christ’s words to our world: ‘Peace be with you,’” Bishop Cozzens, chairman of the board of the National Eucharistic Congress, said in an April 20 email from the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. “With our Holy Father we desire to be witnesses to Christ’s love praying for the peace of Christ to descend upon our country and our world.”
This pilgrimage, Bishop Cozzens explained, “is a united prayer of petition to God on behalf of our country and for peace in the world. It is not about political statements, but about spiritual renewal.”
He noted that the Knights of Columbus was the first organization to advocate for the phrase “One Nation Under God” to be in the pledge.
“To live ‘under God’ is to live in His truth, to recognize that the dignity of every human life comes from Him, to live our call to true human fraternity, and to remember that unity begins in humility and service of neighbor,” he continued. “The Eucharist forms us in these truths, inviting us to self-emptying service, calling us to communion, and teaching us self-gift.”
The bishop encouraged Catholics to treat this historic year as an opportunity for something greater than memorial, saying that amid the nation’s 250th anniversary, “We are invited into something deeper than a simple remembrance, we are invited into revival. To truly bring our hearts and minds ‘under God’ so that we can be witness to our country of the love of Christ.”
As Zeale News previously reported, nine Catholic young adults called Perpetual Pilgrims will be traveling with Our Eucharistic Lord along a route that starts in St. Augustine, Florida, and concludes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They will carry prayer intentions from people they meet along the way and from those who submit their intentions online. At the concluding Mass, the pilgrims will offer up the intentions they received.
The hope is for the event — the center of which is Christ Himself — to bring healing to the nation, according to Bishop Cozzens.
“We pray this pilgrimage will call all of us beyond the divisive rhetoric of this time to bear witness to a higher truth: that lasting peace, justice, and unity are possible when we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ,” he wrote. “What a privilege that right now we have an American Pope who calls us to these ideals. We stand with the Holy Father in proclaiming the truths of the Gospel which helped form the ideals of our country.”
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