As a resident of the Little Sisters of the Poor’s Holy Family Residence in St. Paul, Minnesota, Teresita Acesor said she was sad she couldn’t join the 7,000 souls who took part in a nearly 5-mile Eucharistic procession in St. Paul on Memorial Day with the six “Perpetual Pilgrims” who were passing through the Twin Cities bearing the Blessed Sacrament on their way to Indianapolis for the Eucharistic Congress this July.

But the following morning, Our Lord and the members of the Marian pilgrimage route who set out from Bemidji in northern Minnesota on May 17 brought the Eucharistic Lord to Acesor and other residents of the St. Paul nursing home who hadn’t been able to be part of the procession and prayed with them. 

“It really fills my heart,” said Acesor, who lives in the sisters’ apartment building near the nursing home. 

“I rejoice because God wants us. God is so good and infinite that he knows we don’t need to even come to follow him, but he will be the one to search for us, to look for us.”

Around 10 a.m. on May 28, about 30 of the residence’s 53 residents lined the pathway in the home’s foyer from the front entrance to the chapel, forming a sort of “honor guard” to welcome the Blessed Sacrament and the pilgrims.

On this rainy Tuesday morning, the pilgrims arrived with Our Lord by van. Though they’re traveling much of the way to Indianapolis on foot, they also were making a number of parish stops this morning. 

After processing into the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament, Deacon Joseph Michalak, a permanent deacon in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese, told the residents, sisters, staff, pilgrims and guests who gathered for adoration and the Rosary about the busy Memorial Day weekend at the nearby Cathedral of St. Paul, where 13 men were ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, followed by the Eucharistic procession two days later, when it was filled beyond capacity.

“Most of us could not be there,” said Deacon Michalak, the archdiocese’s director of the Office of Synod Evangelization who also has ministered to the Little Sisters’ home’s residents for about five years. “But I want you to know that that same Lord Jesus who blessed yesterday all those people is this same Lord Jesus here today.”

Though the pilgrims stayed less than an hour, their visit with Our Lord blessed both sisters and residents. 

“How privileged, blessed and honored we are to have the procession come to our facility,” said Mother Theresa Gertrude, superior and administrator. “It is a great joy to let all the residents be able to participate in this, because they’re such prayer warriors, and we know God’s blessing is upon everyone. And we pray for the success, for the health and the well-being of all the pilgrims. We are just so grateful to God to have this opportunity.”

The Little Sisters of the Poor are an international congregation of Roman Catholic women religious founded in 1839 by St. Jeanne Jugan, according to the Little Sisters’ website. The order serves the elderly poor in more than 30 countries around the world.

Resident and retired priest Father George Welzbacher, a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for more than 70 years, waited near the home’s entrance for the pilgrims’ arrival. Noting the blessing of daily Eucharist at the home, Father Welzbacher said after the visit that the Eucharist brings blessings and forgiveness if we are penitent: “Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist is never impatient when we ask him in the Eucharist for forgiveness.” 

Another resident, Marlene Wacker, who said she often prays the Rosary, said the morning prayer and visit with pilgrims was a good idea and “very nicely done.”

Though most residents weren’t able to attend the Eucharistic procession on Monday with Little Sisters of the Poor Sister Joseph Marie and another sister, she said, “Jesus came to them; and just like it says in the Gospel, ‘let the little children come to me,’ Jesus came to the most humble, our residents.” 

During the Eucharistic procession traveling from the St. Paul Seminary to the Cathedral of St. Paul, the two sisters encountered rain, thunder, lightning and sun, “but through everything, we were able to accompany Jesus on his way through the streets of St. Paul, being a witness of his love and his total giving to everyone,” Sister Joseph Marie said. “As we process the streets, several onlookers joined in on the procession and others looked with amazement. Others looked with awe, but perhaps his passing struck a chord in their hearts, which will help them to turn back to Jesus.” 

The sisters will offer residents regular updates on the Eucharistic Pilgrimage routes and events and the opportunity to watch the July 17-21 Eucharistic Congress together, she said.  

While the visit was most of the residents’ first contact with the pilgrims, the home was also the first nursing home the Marian Route pilgrims have visited so far, said Kai Weiss, one of the “Perpetual Pilgrims” from Regensburg, Germany, now doing graduate study at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and a researcher at the Thomistic Institute who lives in Washington, D.C. 

He said the pilgrims have met more with schools and religious communities. Citing their many quick stops, he said he regretted that they didn’t have more time to talk with residents. 

But the visit was “very touching — and especially when the deacon said, ‘Many of us couldn’t come to a procession yesterday, so Jesus decided to come to you,’” Weiss said.

Pilgrim Matthew Heidenreich, a native of Columbus, Ohio, who is currently studying at the University of Alabama, added, “Walking in and seeing all the residents who’d come down and were waiting for the Lord, it was incredible. It was clear that a lot of them had experienced some of this before and were excited to welcome the King. … It felt like they were welcoming; they were inviting him in.”

The Little Sisters of the Poor is really a home and very few people have a chance to have Our Lord on the pilgrimage come to their home, Deacon Michalak said. But not only is it a home, “this is a cauldron of prayer,” the deacon said. “The folks here who are at daily Mass, daily Rosary, daily praying, praying for the Church, praying for vocations, praying for their families, praying for the families that have suffered estrangement and division. This is a cauldron of prayer. This is like a monastery, and for these people to be included in the Eucharistic Pilgrimage is significant not only for them, that Our Lord has come to them, but that, as it were, they now go with him as he continues. So I think this is a really important day for this home.”

And the Eucharistic Revival with four distinct pilgrimages that will culminate in the Eucharistic Congress this July is important for our country in a time when we’re experiencing confusion, chaos and a loss of faith, resident Acesor said, adding, “I am sure of God doing this for the whole country, for our country, the U.S.A., because he knows that we need him; we need his special grace and blessing to make us strong and not for us to fear anything.”

Amid the pilgrims’ busy schedule of stops, the Lord brought the Eucharistic Revival to the Little Sisters of the Poor’s residents. 

Mother Theresa Gertrude said, “He came to us.”