On the Feast of Corpus Christi this year, Palomita Films was able to be a part of the Eucharistic Procession.
Garret McCall has wanted to participate in this procession since he began going to Medjugorje years ago so this year Palomita Films planned a pilgrimage to Medjugorje during the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Garret: "After going to Medjugorje so many times, for the youth festival, for March 18th, or all these other big events that happen throughout the year, the one event I never got to experience is Corpus Christi.
I've always loved Eucharistic processions, but I just knew it would be special in Medjugorje. I have a couple of friends that have been going to Medjugorje for years that live in Austria, and they just said that Corpus Christi is their favorite time to be in Medjugorje. It's just the most beautiful.
I just had the desire to go for Corpus Christi to experience the procession and to be with all the faithful there walking through the streets.
Getting there, we experienced some delays. My mom and I missed our flight twice. The way things played out, it should not have happened like that.
The whole flight over, I kept praying to Our Lady and saying, "If you want me to film this, if you want us to put a video together, then make a way.” But I knew it was going to be super close. We were either going to just get there or we were going to miss it by like an hour or two. But I was thinking we were going to miss it.
We landed, dropped off our bags at the hotel, and then we went over to the church. Literally as soon as we got over to the church, they were starting to come out.
It was like, all right, here we go. There was no time to walk around or prepare. I brought all my gear over and we just started filming, Cimela and I.
A Eucharistic procession in New York City or anywhere else is different compared to Medjugorje. Usually, you're processing through the streets and you're going to encounter people who don't know Jesus. They're asking us questions. “What is this? Who is that? Is the pope here?”
It was neat to explain to random people that this is what we believe. Then you have a sea of people walking and they're like, “Okay, well, maybe there's something to this if all these people are believing in this.”
But in Medjugorje, everybody believes. All the bystanders understand what's going on. The whole town understands it. So it's not so much that you're processing as a witness, you're processing in Medjugorje as a saint, with desire to be a saint. We're all there striving for sainthood.
Processing through Medjugorje is beautiful because a lot of the shops are closed and people are standing on their balconies or in front of their houses that aren't participating in the procession, but they're all kneeling, they're all deep in prayer with us. They have little statues of Mary everywhere. They're throwing rose petals.
It's just beautiful to see that everyone understands this is Jesus. You don't have anybody questioning it. Everyone knows this is Jesus. I'll never forget that. It was pretty incredible.
It was beautiful. It's just moving. I think to be in any Eucharistic procession is moving. We're all marching with Jesus and trying to be better people."
Watch our Instagram reel of the Medjugorje procession:
Garret: "One little Easter egg that's in the video, you'll see visionary Marija. A lot of people will probably watch the video and won’t even realize it's her, but for those that do, it’s cool because the visionaries, they're one of us. Marija was just another face in the crowd. It was really cool to see her praying with us and singing and experiencing her faith right there with us."
“If receiving my Son in the Eucharist is the center of your life then do not be afraid, you can do everything.”
- Our Lady Queen of Peace on June 2, 2012
Check out our other blog post about Garret's experience filming the Eucharistic procession in NYC.