The Procession: On Thursday evening, the Blessed Sacrament, accompanied by 25,000 people processed for approximately three hours through the streets of Quebec City. It was the first such large public display of devotion in fifty years.

We of Madonna House watched the beginning of the procession before we joined it. (Jocko d’Ursel, our photographer, wanted to take a photograph of the monstrance.)

First came the cardinals—a flowing stream of red and white. Then the bishops, then the priests. It seemed as if they would never stop coming.

Then came huge puppets of the French Canadian saints and blesseds.

Finally everyone else started coming, and it wasn’t long before we saw the huge monstrance. It was carried on a float and pulled by a truck. Three cardinals—Quebec’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet; Cardinal Jozef Tomko (the papal legate), and Cardinal Sarr of Dakar, Senegal—were kneeling before it in prayer.

The crowd was huge. It was estimated that 10,000 Quebeckers marched along with those of us who were attending the congress. And as for the spectators, for some it may well have been the first time they had ever seen the Blessed Sacrament.

I can only convey the experience of walking in that procession in images. People here and there waving to us from their windows. Elderly people, some in wheel chairs, some holding candles, sitting in front of a nursing home. Homemade shrines on porches. The bells of St. François Church and later on of St. Roch, ringing long and loud to proclaim the presence of the Lord far into the city.

A neighborhood. A business district. Old Quebec. A group from Angola spontaneously singing the most beautiful music, a group from Tahiti in native dress, rain for a short time, a glimpse of the St. Lawrence River. And always the Blessed Sacrament moved on—blessing, blessing the city.

The Agape Meal: One evening parishes throughout the city hosted groups of pilgrims for a supper. Along with a few other small groups from throughout Canada, we went to the parish of St. Monique.

The warm hospitality, the fellowship, the joy, the lightness of heart, the kind of pleasure you usually only feel at the reunions of loving families, were palpable. Such an atmosphere among strangers, strangers who did not even speak the same language, could only have come from God.

We ate the meat pies of Lac St. Jean, French Canadian boiled dinner, and sugar pie, along with the more familiar macaroni salad and fruit. And after supper, they passed around some of that wonderful French Canadian candy—maple fudge.

At my table were a couple from the parish and a woman from Calgary whom they were putting up for the congress. The friendship that had obviously sprung up between them was beautiful, as was the face of the husband. It held so much peace that I could hardly keep from staring at him.

Pilgrims in groups (including us) sang our gratitude in English, and the parishioners played French-Canadian music, sang, danced folk dances, and invited us to join in. It was a wonderful time of just being together.

The Ordination: At an evening Mass, twelve priests were ordained for the province of Quebec—two for the diocese, one for the Dominicans, one for a Sacred Heart Monastery, and eight for one of the new ecclesial communities—Marie-Jeunesse.

In Quebec, a province that has been so secularized and that has had so few new priests in recent years, this was an event for great rejoicing. And rejoice we did!

The choir was from Marie-Jeunesse, an excellent choir at any time, and this time their music was as filled with joy as any I have ever heard.

Everything was in French, but you didn’t need words to see and hear the extraordinary thing that was happening.

You could see everything both on the altar and on the large screens—the joy and conviction in the faces of the young men to be ordained, the prostration, the laying on of hands by several cardinals, and the anointing of hands.

When the ordination itself was over, when the men had become priests, the whole stadium went wild with jubilation. It seemed like the applause couldn’t possibly be longer, stronger, more filled with joy.

Then right near the altar, in full view, the parents vested their sons. The screen showed one father giving his son a spontaneous hug. We went wild with applause that went even longer than it did the first time.

I had never experienced such an outpouring of joy in any crowd at any event.

Even had there been nothing else, these three events alone would have made the congress unforgettable. In fact, the ordination alone would have done it.