Diocese of Green Bay holds Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Hope in Fox Valley area
By William Van de Planque | On Mission
Photography submitted
APPLETON, WI — Following the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which made one of its many stops in Green Bay, the Diocese of Green Bay held a local Eucharistic pilgrimage in the Fox Valley area from Wednesday, July 9 to Sunday, July 13, 2025.
The Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Hope started in Kaukauna at Holy Cross Parish and ended in Appleton at St. Pius X Parish, one of three jubilee sites designated by Bishop David Ricken for the Jubilee Year of Hope.
Chaplain Fr. Michael Thiel, pastor of St. Denis Parish, Shiocton, and St. Patrick Parish, Stephensville, led a small group of young adults, who walked about 9-14 miles each day as perpetual pilgrims.
“There is a group of us, a small group of young adults, that (is) walking starting today and ending on Sunday afternoon,” Fr. Thiel said during his homily at the 8 a.m. Mass, which began the pilgrimage. “We are going to walk to every single Catholic parish, school and health care facility in the Fox Valley.”
Fr. Thiel was a chaplain for the week that the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage came through the Diocese of Green Bay.
“After that event, and realizing how powerful that was — not only for me personally, but for the pilgrims and the parishes that it was able to encounter — I proposed the possibility of doing a diocesan Eucharistic pilgrimage,” he said.
Fr. Thiel worked with the Office of Divine Worship at the diocese to organize the pilgrimage. They reached out to young adult groups in the Fox Valley area and Green Bay, as well as to the nearby college campuses, including the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
“We were looking for something specifically for young adults to be able to do,” Fr. Thiel said.
Kai Weiss, one of the perpetual pilgrims on the Marian Route (from Minnesota to Indianapolis) of the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, returned to the Diocese of Green Bay.
“It was just amazing,” he said. “I cannot recommend it highly enough. That way of life is extremely challenging but extremely beautiful; to just spend all day with the Blessed Sacrament and to observe how Jesus encounters people and also how he tries to transform our own hearts.”
Weiss is originally from Regensburg, Germany, but moved to the United States full time in 2021 and currently resides in Washington, D.C.
He applied to be a perpetual pilgrim at the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage in 2024 but “did not think there was any chance that (he) would be accepted,” he said.
“But I thought it was the most amazing idea ever,” Weiss said. “I think it is exactly what is needed most: this reminder, in a public way, of Christ’s love for us.”
The 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, part of the Eucharistic Revival in the United States, began at four different points in the country, all converging at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Weiss also spoke about how the Church differs globally from his experience growing up in Europe.
“I think in Europe, there’s a much greater tradition for processions and pilgrimages in general,” he said. “It is much more of a cultural phenomenon rather than a religious phenomenon.”
Weiss said he had a conversion experience when he came to the United States in 2019 for the Thomistic Institute Civitas Dei Summer Fellowship in Washington, D.C.
He described the Church in the United States as being young, vibrant and energetic.
“I still believe that now, six years later, (the Church in the United States) just gives me so much hope, and it’s a forerunner for the Catholic Church around the whole world,” Weiss said.
“The most beautiful part of being on these pilgrimages is to really experience how God acts — how God really is — on the basis of how he encounters people. There were so many beautiful encounters,” he said.
As the pilgrims processed with Jesus in a monstrance, there were opportunities for prayer at each stop along the way, including the Rosary, Liturgy of the Hours, Mass, Reconciliation, and other devotions — all accompanied by Eucharistic adoration.
Fr. Thiel also led the group of pilgrims in a prayer offered to the patron of each church at which they stopped.
After the 3 p.m. stop at St. Bernadette Parish on Thursday afternoon, there were three hours of Eucharistic adoration, followed by an “Evening of Hope” with a talk, confession and music.
Fr. Andrew Kurz, the diocesan confessor for the Jubilee Year of Hope, who gave the talk that evening, made distinctions between different types of pilgrimage.
“There are really two types of pilgrimage,” Fr. Kurz said. “One we are all on is the pilgrimage of life.”
“There is the universal pilgrimage that we are all on from the moment of our birth to eternal life, hopefully in heaven,” Fr. Thiel added later. “Then there’s the particular pilgrimages that remind us of that universal one that we are all on.”
Fr. Kurz also spoke about making a pilgrimage in the context of this Jubilee Year of Hope.
“The first step to making any pilgrimage general or particular…is humility,” he said.
“There’s also this beautiful sense of Jesus’ humility and very gentle desire to meet everyone and have everyone fall in love with him,” Weiss said.
At the closing Mass of the pilgrimage at St. Pius X Parish, Appleton, Fr. Thiel shared highlights from the five-day journey with the Eucharist.
“As we’ve been traveling with Jesus in the Eucharist, there have been some beautiful encounters,” he said. “Somebody running; a couple biking; another person driving in his car; each of them realizes that there is a Eucharistic procession, and they stop and they kneel.”
“They get off their bikes, get out of their cars and they kneel for a moment of quiet prayer as Jesus in the Eucharist comes close to them,” he said.
Fr. Thiel said in his homily that St. Pius X, the patron of the church in which the closing Mass was held, was the pope who lowered the age of First Communion to around 7.
He then described a particular encounter with a crowd of 3- or 4-year-olds playing outside a daycare in Kimberly.
“All of a sudden, the kids realize there’s something that looks like a great parade coming by,” Fr. Thiel said. “‘What’s that? What’s going on?’ (they asked, leaning against a fence). Then one of the older kids — and by older, I mean about 7 — recognized, ‘That’s Jesus!’ and everyone started clapping.”
The 7-year-old had reached the age of reason and realized that Jesus in the Eucharist was coming close, he said.
Fr. Thiel concluded his homily during the closing Mass of the pilgrimage by speaking once more about the theme of hope.
“This is a Eucharistic Pilgrimage of Hope in this Jubilee Year of Hope,” he said. “Hope reminds us that our happiness is in eternal life…”
“A pilgrimage around a spiritual setting is a little reminder… that our pilgrimages on this earth are meant to be leading us to that eternal destination with Jesus as our hope forever in heaven.”