By Reagan Scott
for the Register
Hundreds of students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) participated in a Eucharistic procession on the school’s campus Thursday, Nov. 2.
The procession, organized by UNL’s St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center each year, brings Jesus in the Eucharist out for all to see, as participants pray for the Lord’s blessing on the school and all those who visit, work and study there.
The evening began with Mass in St. Thomas Aquinas Church, where Bishop James Conley installed Father Ryan Kaup as pastor of the Newman Center. Father Kaup has been serving as pastor and chaplain for the Newman Center since he was assigned there this summer.
After Mass, the procession made its way out onto campus. The group was led by Bishop Conley, Father Kaup and Father Alec Sasse, the assistant pastor at the Newman Center and vocation director for the diocese. All three took turns carrying the monstrance along the route.
Related item: photo slideshow of procession
The event served as a full-circle moment for Father Kaup, who participated in the Eucharistic procession as a freshman in college. He said he enjoyed seeing how participation has grown from his time as a student at the school.
A Eucharistic procession is an uncommon event to witness at a public university, but it’s one that Father Kaup said can have a far-reaching impact.
“In a unique and special way, to carry the Blessed Sacrament is to carry Jesus through campus,” he said. “We just believe that Jesus wants to work in the hearts of everyone on campus, and it’s a powerful way he can work on people’s hearts.”
Anna Vavak, a junior at UNL, participated in the Eucharistic procession for the second time last week. She said the large group garners many stares as it makes its way through campus, which makes it an incredible opportunity.
“You see lots of people watching and you wonder what they’re thinking, but Jesus is working in a way you might not be able to see. It’s a great witness,” she said.
Victoria Fassett, the campus minister for the Newman Center, said she’s always loved the stories that come from these Eucharistic events, like a FOCUS missionary sharing the Gospel with two girls on the front steps of their sorority house because they had never seen a Eucharistic procession before, “...and even the countless Snapchat stories that Jesus appears on as people lean out of their dorm windows, trying to understand why people are following a priest holding a gold object when it’s freezing cold outside,” she said.
As the procession made its way through campus, the group stopped at three altars set up along the route, where the priest who had just carried the monstrance read a Gospel passage and said a prayer.
The first altar was set up outside the student union on campus, which sees a great deal of student traffic. There, Father Kaup said, the group asked the Lord’s blessing on all of the students who walk through it.
The second stop was outside Memorial Stadium, which Father Kaup referred to as, “the heart of campus in some ways.”
Finally, the group stopped at an altar set up on Greek Row, where they prayed for God’s blessing on the Greek system.
While Father Kaup had come back to campus to participate in the Eucharistic procession as a seminarian, he said it was an incredible thing to be back and able to carry the monstrance along the procession route.
“It represents what I want to do as a priest,” he said. “I want Jesus to live in me and flow from me, and the procession allows me to do that as a pastor.”
The group made its way back to the Newman Center, where there was Eucharistic adoration to end the night.
While the procession serves as a way to take Jesus out to the students on campus, another one of the Newman Center’s events, Night Fever, invites them in.
Each semester, the Newman Center hosts an evening of adoration called Night Fever. It features praise and worship music, prayer teams and an opportunity for students to light candles for their intentions, which they can place around the altar.
For this semester’s event in September, Vavak volunteered with one of the street teams – groups of students and missionaries who go out onto campus to invite their fellow Huskers into the chapel, to light a candle and pray for a little while.
Vavak said she and a friend ran into two girls who were headed to a party and successfully invited them to come back to the Newman Center with them. There, the girls each lit a candle, prayed for a while, and headed back out.
Fassett said events like Night Fever and the Eucharistic procession, “shine a light on the reality that Jesus, especially in the Eucharist, is a distinctive part of our Catholic faith. The invitation we make to students to go outside their comfort zone to introduce people to the Real Presence in the Eucharist is an incredible way to drive home that reality, not only on campus, but also for our students.”
She also said that, much like being Catholic in the culture at large isn’t always easy, neither is being a Catholic college student.
“But risking rejection and making the internal choice that Jesus is more important than however someone might respond to me, or what they might think of me, is something infinitely worthy of respect and deepens our relationship with the Lord,” she said.
Of course, Jesus is always waiting for students in the chapel at St. Thomas Aquinas, not just on the evenings when Night Fever is held. The Newman Center has adoration every Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and every Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., save when daily Mass is being celebrated. Visitors are welcome, particularly as the Newman Center is one of the 17 chapels on the diocesan Eucharistic Passport Pilgrimage underway through July.
There’s a sign-up board outside the church where students can fill out their names to take an hour of adoration. Each hour needs two students. Father Kaup said that within a week of the students being back on campus, the sign-up board was full.
“One of the biggest treasures of our church is that it’s one of the only quiet places on campus. It’s a beautiful refuge,” Father Kaup said.
Vavak said she has found herself appreciating that quiet as she’s participated in adoration the past couple years. She said adoration is a good way to enter into silence in the busy culture of a university campus.
“It brings rest into college,” she said.
After participating in SEEK during her freshman year of college, Vavak signed up for a holy hour during her spring semester. She enjoyed it so much that she continued the habit into her sophomore year, picking an hour each week to stop in and pray.
This year, she committed herself to a holy hour three days a week, and goes into the church every day to pray, even on those days she isn’t signed up to cover a specific hour.
During her time in prayer, Vavak has seen lots of people come into the church to pray, from fellow Catholics, to students who have never been in the Newman Center before.
“The students who walk into Newman randomly, they’re looking for an encounter with the Lord,” she said.
Vavak said she appreciates the opportunities that the Newman Center provides to make Jesus available to students on UNL’s campus.
“I think it’s important, just for mission,” she said. “We’re called to make Jesus available, either by bringing him to people or inviting them in. Everyone needs Jesus.”
Fassett agreed, saying a relationship with the Lord is the most important thing anyone can have, and that without that, nothing one does matters.
“Creating habits in the college students of sacrificing an hour a week to pray in adoration or knowing that when they have a hard day or extra time, they can come stop in the chapel, is helping them to build lifelong habits of prayer and also showing the people in their lives that Jesus is the one who can handle anything that comes up in life,” she said.
Father Kaup said the traditions have had such a profound effect because of the work Father Robert Matya did during his time as pastor.
“Father Matya had a great love for the Eucharist and made it a priority. That’s a grace that’s grown throughout the years,” Father Kaup said.
Now, with the Eucharistic Revival going on across the country, Father Kaup said the movement is underlining what’s already being done at Newman.
“The revival can come through our continued efforts in the hearts of those who have maybe strayed away from the Eucharist,” he said.
The church has seen more traffic as one of the stops on the diocese’s Eucharistic Passport Pilgrimage, serving not just a space for students, but anyone desiring a quiet moment away from life’s busyness with the Lord.
