How could this not change the world
A quiet question at Communion opens onto something much larger—a movement of Grace unfolding across the country.
How could this not change the world.
I found myself asking it quietly as I stood there photographing the Communion line at St. Joseph’s on Holy Thursday this year. Person after person stepped forward. The line didn’t seem to end. It just kept coming. My arms were beginning to grow weary from holding the camera, but something else was happening at the same time.
A joy began to rise.
A smile followed.
Because one by one, they were receiving Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and then carrying Him back out into the world. Into the streets of New York. Into their workplaces and homes. Into their families and struggles.
And the thought came, almost without effort: how could this not change the world.
As the days passed and the memory of that Mass began to settle, my thoughts drifted toward something larger—something that had been building for years now.
A revival.
I remember when I was thought a little crazy for saying that out loud. And I remember exactly where that conviction first took hold of me: the center of Times Square.
I had gone reluctantly. A friend had mentioned that “some people” were gathering near Father Duffy Square for a Eucharistic procession. I had just finished covering an ordination at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and was exhausted. My batteries low in every sense, no pun intended. I didn’t make a bold decision to go.
I was dragged there.
Praise God, Grace has a way of doing that.
At first, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking at. There was a sea of people, but Times Square isn’t exactly a stranger to that. But as I began to study the faces, the shirts, the banners, it became clear.
These were the “some people.”
And “some people” turned out to be several thousand.
I remember pausing, taking it in, glancing upward, smiling, and quietly whispering, thank you… again…
That Eucharistic procession—the largest in New York City’s history—felt like an announcement. A signal that something had begun.
Looking back now, the pattern is unmistakable.
From that day forward, more and more Eucharistic processions began appearing throughout the city and beyond it. Uptown. Downtown. Across boroughs. Across states.
And then came 2024.
Four National Eucharistic Pilgrimages, each beginning at the edges of the country and moving inward—thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands of people all converging in Indianapolis for the first National Eucharistic Congress in eighty-three years.
I had the privilege of covering much of that journey. Walking with pilgrims across cities and plains. Through San Francisco, the farmlands of Nebraska, the streets of New York.
All drawn by the same thing.
Not an idea.
A Presence.
And even after the Congress, it didn’t stop.
Another pilgrimage followed—through rural America, across farm towns, deserts, and reservations. Everywhere I turn now, I see it.
A growing, vibrant, emerging Church.
The headlines speak of record numbers of catechumens entering the Church this Easter. Parishes once quiet are now full. Lines once short now stretch.
We’ve gone, in what feels like a matter of years, from hand-wringing… to Hallelujah.
So what happened?
How did this come about?
Programs matter. Outreach matters. Evangelization matters.
But that’s not what’s at the heart of this.
At the heart of the revival is something much simpler…
Grace.
The Grace that has been carried across this nation—Jesus Christ Himself, present in the Blessed Sacrament—moving through highways and city streets, through quiet towns and crowded avenues alike.
Just as He once walked the dusty roads of Galilee…
He is walking again.
And that night, I saw it once more.
On Holy Thursday—the night the Eucharist was given—He passed once again through the streets of New York. Through Washington Square Park. Moving quietly through the ordinary life of the city.
Some noticed, some didn’t.
But that didn’t matter, because His Grace— a Grace that has an immediate effect—flowed out into the world.
And the question returned, no longer as a thought, but as something closer to an answer.
What is causing this revival?
In one word?
Jesus.
And how could that not change the world.
After all…
He made it.
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It allows me to continue telling these stories.
Thank you for being here. Please keep me in your prayers, as I keep you in mine.
God bless,
Jeff
I cannot yet pay your work, although I would like. However, in God's eyes your photos and writings are priceless. Thank you for letting us take part in it.
I've really loved following your work from afar Jeff, great to see it over on Substack now - and so now a fan of your writing too! Best from London