The 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will set off across the East Coast this spring, once again comprising young adult Catholics from around the country carrying prayers, praise, and the Blessed Sacrament over a six-week trek.
The annual pilgrimage, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as an outworking of its National Eucharistic Revival, is now in its third year and has the theme “One Nation Under God,” honoring the United States’ 250th anniversary.
Helping to lead the group of nine perpetual pilgrims this year is a returnee from the 2025 pilgrimage, Cheyenne Johnson, a Black Catholic young adult who currently works as a missionary with the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal.
“I loved the pilgrimage last year. It was ending and I had such an amazing experience and just remember thinking, ‘I wish it was longer. I wish I could do it again,’” she told BCM.
“I just really felt the Lord calling me to say yes to this again. So I'm very excited to be back.”
Organizers, along with several of its nine perpetual pilgrims, announced further details of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which takes place May 24 through July 5.https://t.co/qAkHvyskPn
— OSV News (@OSVNews) March 26, 2026
Beginning Memorial Day weekend, the 2026 route, named for the Italian-American saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, will embark from the nation’s oldest city—St. Augustine, Florida—where Spanish settlers said the first Mass on the mainland and founded its first permanent European settlement in 1565. Among them were a number of free and enslaved Black Catholics, a community that later produced the nation’s first free Black town, two miles north at Fort Mose.
The pilgrimage will then travel through 18 dioceses and archdioceses along the East Coast, including Savannah, Charleston, Washington, Baltimore, Boston, and Providence, among others. It will then culminate in Philadelphia, the nation’s first capital and the site of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the creation of the first U.S. flag, and the signing of the Constitution.
“We're excited to sort of unite our country and the memory of its history, and to explore the Catholic contribution to this American experiment,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress.
“Catholics were here long before 1776. So this idea of a pilgrimage of one nation under God is us sort of framing this as a country still in conversion, a country still on pilgrimage, a country that still recognizes that we are under God, that God gives us our human rights, God is who gives us our freedoms.”
Johnson, a Catholic convert who originally hails from Florida, said the state’s patron saint—Our Lady of La Leche—was instrumental in her experience of returning as a leader for this year’s journey, which will begin at her national shrine.
Johnson shared that while working with the Renewal sisters in New Jersey, she prayed to her without knowing of the actual Marian title or devotion in Florida, and shortly after was accepted as a perpetual pilgrim.
“We were coming back down to Atlantic City and we were passing all these ice cream shops and I wanted ice cream so badly… We were praying a rosary and I was just praying to ‘Our Lady of La Leche.’ I was thinking that's close enough to ice cream,” said Johnson.
“It was really at that moment that [Director of Pilgrimages Maria Benes] called me… She said it was starting at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche and I was like ‘No way.’ I had never actually heard of her. There was no devotion there… She didn't get me ice cream, but this is so much better.”
Another Black Catholic pilgrim, Marcel Ferrer, is from Ohio and currently studies marketing, theology, and music at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Like Johnson, he said he is excited to bring Jesus to the people and pray for the nation as it celebrates its anniversary and endures a challenging climate of social upheaval.
“For me, it's just an opportunity to be present to people with Jesus, which is just awesome,” Ferrer said.
“I spend personal time with Jesus and then I'm aside from that, I also like to serve people. But the two are always at separate times, so to be able to travel the country with Jesus right next to me and also serve people is just so exciting for me. I'm just really excited for what the Lord will do this summer within my own heart and the hearts of everyone we encounter.”
2026 perpetual pilgrims Cheyenne Johnson, left, and Marcel Ferrer. (Rachael Meier/Simple Heart Photography in partnership with the National Eucharistic Congress)
As a Catholic revert whose faith was revived by an experience with the Eucharist while on a retreat, Ferrer said it’s a “once in a lifetime” experience to share Jesus in a unique way with those who will join or encounter the pilgrimage along its various stops.
“Pope St. Paul VI said that modern man doesn't listen to teachers as much as he listens to witnesses, and that’s so true,” said Ferrer.
“We’re going to be witnessing to people on the route. They're going to know the reason for our witness and he's going to be standing right next to us.”
The general public is invited to join the public events of the pilgrimage, which will stop in the various dioceses for between one and five days at a time. Events of special Black Catholic interest include a founder’s landing reenactment in St. Augustine on Saturday, May 23; a talk from the first Black diocesan priest in Florida, Msgr James Boddie, on Monday, May 25; and a Eucharistic procession in Savannah on Wednesday, May 27, beginning at a Catholic chapel originally founded for African Americans.
All of the main pilgrimage events are free, though at least some gatherings, including an opening concert in Florida, require paid tickets. Those interested in joining stops on the pilgrimage can view all scheduled events, including an interactive map, and register for events on the NEP website.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
