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“I knew I wanted to be part of it”
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April 5, 2024Ten Perpetual Pilgrims will accompany the Eucharist on the Juan Diego Route from Brownsville to Indianapolis, the site of the Eucharistic Congress. Six of them are college students or recent graduates. Charlie McCullough is a true Texan from Austin who is studying engineering at Texas A&M College Station.
“I first heard about the pilgrimage when I was listening to a podcast about a year ago, and there were just some murmurs in it about a cross-country Eucharistic pilgrimage and procession. As soon as I heard that, something in me stirred,” McCullough shares in an interview with South Texas Catholic. “And I immediately thought I’d love to be a part of that.”
Months passed, and he kept an eye on what would happen at the Eucharistic Revival. Eventually, he saw a post about the National Eucharistic pilgrimage. “I read the whole website, what we were going to be doing, and in that moment, I said, ‘no matter what happens, I’m going to spend the summer after I graduate doing this.’”
He applied, went through the interview process, and was chosen for the Juan Diego Route, together with Camille Anigbogu, a native Houstonian currently working as a music director; Issy Martin-Dye from the Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio, a journalism and design student; Joshua Velasquez is an undergraduate studying Architecture and Theology at the University of Notre Dame originally from Edinburg, Texas; MacKenzie Warrens, a Kansan turned Texan who is doing a Ph.D. in experimental atomic physics at Rice University in Houston, and is a candidate for consecrated virginity lived in the world, and Shayla Elm, who works in Denver for the Catholic non-profit Christ in the City.
Even if McCullough still has some exams, he is eager to go on this long pilgrimage. He will walk an estimated 600-700 miles, from a total of 1,700 miles that he will travel. He has a deep relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist: “It has changed my life… over my last few years in college, I’ve gotten to know Jesus Christ, and this is just a natural step to continue that relationship and invite others into it all across the United States which I’m very excited about.”
Going to Mass in his first year of college was a decisive step for him: “I had been born and raised Catholic, received my sacraments at a young age, but I hadn’t really encountered Jesus Christ in a personal way…. I had a good friend who would perpetually invite me to come to Daily Mass with him, and I always found an excuse until one day, I didn’t. I went to Mass with him that evening, and after I received the Eucharist, something deep in my heart was stirred.”
At that time, McCullough was going through a time of anxiety and confusion – all the big questions about what to do in life, what major to pick, what career to follow – but in the Eucharist, he encountered a deep peace.
“It was at that moment like a compass was planted inside my mind, inside of my heart, that would always point back to Him.” He started going to mass regularly with his friends and attending retreats, “it was just a point of transformation to where everything before that in my life looked different than afterward.” He found an excellent group of friends, “we started doing everything together; we would take classes together, we’d grab meals together, we’d go on vacations together, we’d sit around campfires together. And this group of people constantly challenged me to go deeper into that relationship with Christ. And I challenged them as well.” He encourages those who want to lead young adults deeper into their faith to provide a space to encounter each other and build friendships centered around Jesus Christ. That experience will lay a lifelong foundation.
Charlie McCullough has big hopes for the pilgrimage: “I hope that the heart of every person we encounter is transformed or stirred in some way… The places we go can never be the same; the people we encounter can never be the same after meeting Jesus Christ.”
How is he preparing himself while finishing his exams? “A lot of walking, and a lot of praying and a lot of praying while I walk,” he says. On average, he goes on one long walk on the weekends and, during the week, keeps himself fit by lifting weights, playing basketball, and running. All 24 Perpetual Pilgrims had a kickoff retreat in Minneapolis in February.
McCullough is excited to start in Brownsville. During his junior year of college, he went on a mission trip to McAllen to serve at the Human Respite Center and other communities around McAllen, “which was a transformative experience for me.” He looks forward to the pilgrimage starting on May 17 and invites everyone to join him and the other pilgrims during those days.
Day pilgrims need to sign up at https://www.eucharisticpilgrimage.org/st-juan-diego-route.
