Sandra Nowak, a parishioner of Holy Apostles in New Berlin, is no stranger to the Eucharist. She’s a daily Mass devotee and a member of her parish’s adoration committee.
But this summer, she’s grown to know Jesus in a way she never saw coming. Nowak walked with the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage each of the nine days it was visiting the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, accompanying the Blessed Sacrament as it traveled into the archdiocese from Kiel to Benet Lake on the Wisconsin/Illinois border.
“Some days, it was difficult, and I had lots of stuff going on that day,” she said. At the time, she was providing childcare for her grandchildren, but she made it a priority to walk with the Lord for some period of time each day, even if it meant “getting up at 5 a.m.” On one particularly long day, the only time she could make it work was late at night after caring for the kids. She drove to the Schoenstatt Shrine in Waukesha — “I had never been there before, I had to Google it” — and stayed until midnight.
At the end of the night, “I had to tear myself away,” she said.
That Eucharistic experience found its culmination in her pilgrimage to Indianapolis, which she had planned even before her participation in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. During the first revival session of the National Eucharistic Congress on Wednesday night, all four groups of perpetual pilgrims processed into Lucas Oil Stadium. When Nowak saw the group from the Marian Route, whom she had accompanied so intimately for that week and a half, she burst into tears.
Those nine days, she said, were like “a little kernel, a little seed” that is now coming to fruition during her time in Indianapolis.
“I can see it coming from all corners, together, and I can see the vibrancy of the Catholic Church, with thousands and thousands of people in that stadium, is just amazing. It isn’t just a few of us, walking for a few miles. It’s worshiping with thousands of like-minded pilgrims. … I’ve never seen so many priests in my whole life. Archbishops. Bishops.”
Several weeks ago, Nowak volunteered at Lifest Music Festival in Green Bay, one of the nation’s longest-running Christian music festivals. “It was great,” she said. “But the whole time I was up there, I kept thinking something was missing, and I know what it is, and I’ll find it here (in Indianapolis).”
Nowak said she didn’t know what to expect of the National Eucharistic Congress initially, as much as she was looking forward to it. “I didn’t sign up for a lot of (break-out) sessions. I’m not a teacher. I’m not a catechist. I’m not anything. Here, some of the people I talk to … have three breakout sessions a day. I mean, they are just booked and they’re here to grasp knowledge to help them with whatever their vocation is,” she said.
And what is she here for?
“I’m just here in total amazement — to witness little kids, big, big families, small groups. It’s just amazing, amazing,” she said. She has been soaking up as much as she can at presentations from nationally recognized Catholic voices like Dr. Edward Sri and Katie Prejean McGready, taking copious notes in her small leatherbound notebook.
“There’s a lot that we don’t have,” she said of the current culture in America, both within the Catholic Church and without. “We don’t have love. We don’t have unity. We have a country that’s divided. We have such poverty in our souls. We all know that everybody is craving something, and they don’t even know what or who. And that who and what is the Eucharist. It’s the Blessed Sacrament. And I think the people who are here can electrify the rest of the United States. I think we can change the culture. I don’t think it’s a hopeless thing — if we are given the tools, the words, the Pentecostal fire to go out and evangelize.”
Holy Apostles parishioner Sandra Nowak with the leatherbound journal she’s been taking notes in this week at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. (Photo by Colleen Jurkiewicz)
