The Visitation: The First Eucharistic Procession

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I join you with great joy at the end of this prayer meeting organized by the Vicariate of Vatican City. I note with pleasure that a large number of you have gathered in the Vatican Gardens for the conclusion of the month of May.

Among you, in particular, are many people who live or work in the Vatican, with their families. I offer a warm greeting to you all; in a special way the Cardinals and Bishops, beginning with Archbishop Angelo Comastri who has led this prayer meeting. I then greet the priests and the men and women religious present, with a thought also for the contemplative Sisters of Mater Ecclesiae Monastery who are spiritually united to us.

Dear friends, you have wound your way up to the Grotto of Lourdes reciting the holy Rosary, as if to respond to the Virgin’s invitation to raise your spirit towards Heaven. Our Lady accompanies us every day in our prayers. During this special Year of the Eucharist in which we are living, Mary helps us above all to discover ever better the great sacrament of the Eucharist.

In his last Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, our beloved Pope John Paul II presented her to us as “Woman of the Eucharist” throughout her life (cf. n. 53). “Woman of the Eucharist” through and through, beginning with her inner disposition: from the Annunciation, when she offered herself for the Incarnation of the Word of God, to the Cross and to the Resurrection; “Woman of the Eucharist” in the period subsequent to Pentecost, when she received in the Sacrament that Body which she had conceived and carried in her womb.

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