Remarks from Jason Shanks
Today, we begin the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage.
We begin here in St. Augustine because this place tells the truth about our history. Before there was a republic, the Cross stood upon these shores.
Here in Florida, Catholic missionaries, explorers, priests, and settlers first brought the Gospel to what would become the United States of America — long before the thirteen colonies were established or the founding documents of our country were envisioned. And so it is fitting that this pilgrimage begins not in a center of political power, but at a place of encounter — where the Gospel first took root on this soil.
This pilgrimage — “One Nation Under God” — is a moment of deep reflection, gratitude, and renewal. It is an invitation not merely to remember our past, but to rediscover the spiritual foundation that alone can sustain our future.
In 1895, Pope Leo XIII wrote to the Church in America: “All intelligent men are agreed that America seems destined for greater things.” And the Holy Father expressed his hope that the Catholic Church would “not only share in but help to bring about this prospective greatness.”
But as Pope Leo XIII understood, the Church was not arriving late to the American story. She was present from the beginning.
The first Christian worship service on this soil was a Catholic Mass. The oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the United States is this city — St. Augustine — founded by Spanish Catholics. Catholic missionaries shed their blood on American soil long before the Revolution, including the Florida and Georgia martyrs who will be honored during the next leg of this pilgrimage.
Across missions and settlements, wilderness forts and trading posts, Catholics explored, mapped, evangelized, and consecrated this land to God — all more than two hundred years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
America did not emerge from a vacuum. It arose from a civilization rooted in the belief that human rights come not from government, but from God. And yet today, as we gather here, we know our nation faces profound division, confusion, and unrest.
We live in an age tempted to place ultimate trust in politics, ideology, power, or personality. But the words “under God” resist that temptation. These words remind us that the American experiment has always depended not merely on structures of power, but on a moral vision capable of correcting power when it goes astray.
To live under God is not to claim moral superiority. It is to accept moral accountability. It is to acknowledge that freedom requires virtue, that rights come with duties, and that reconciliation begins with humility.
And as Catholics, we must remember: God is not a distant watchmaker who created the world, wound it up, and stepped away. Our God is personal, relational, and present. That is why the Eucharist stands at the center of this pilgrimage.
The Eucharist reminds us that God remains among us. Jesus Christ — who suffered, died, and rose two thousand years ago — is made present to us at every Mass. The same Christ worshipped on these shores centuries ago is the same Christ we celebrate here today.
He is active. He is personal. He is calling out to each one of us. And he is still on the move.
The Eucharist is not an assertion of power. It is an act of self-gift.
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, the question before us is not simply whether we will remember our founding documents, but whether we will recover the posture that made them possible.
“One Nation Under God” is not a declaration of greatness. It is a confession of dependence.
Abraham Lincoln, speaking during one of the darkest moments in American history, prayed that this nation might experience “a new birth of freedom” — a freedom that would endure under God. That challenge remains before us now.
Fifty years ago, during America’s bicentennial year, the International Eucharistic Congress was held in Philadelphia. Present there was Pope St. John Paul II, who spoke words that feel almost prophetic for our own moment:
“The hunger for freedom passes through the heart of every man, and the richer the heart, the greater that hunger. The Eucharist is the chief source of the wealth contained in the human heart. The hunger for freedom passes also through the history of the human race, through the history of nations and peoples. It reveals their spiritual maturity and at the same time tests it.”
We are being tested. I am being tested. You are being tested. Our nation is being tested.
Yet Christ remains with us.
And in the Eucharist lie, as Gaudium et Spes teaches, “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age.”
So today, we begin. Together, let us move beyond division and toward communion. Beyond confusion and toward truth. Beyond self-interest and toward self-gift.
A nation that knows how to kneel is a nation capable of standing. And may this pilgrimage help renew our nation in the only way that truly lasts:
Under the mercy of God.
Under the truth of God.
Under the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Our Lady of La Leche, pray for us.
Married for twenty-one years, father of five, convert, Jason serves as the President of the National Eucharistic Congress.
