Why we have Processions

• For our Catholic culture, processions are an intimate part of our liturgical and spiritual life, that date back to our Jewish roots.
• Catholic processions are a type of pilgrimage first undertaken by the Jews to represent important historical events.
• We have processions to remind us that our Christian life is a constant movement toward God and our eternal home. We are after all a pilgrim people.
• Every procession is a physical testimony to our belief in the journey.
• Processions are a popular form of Piety

Procession

Printed for the Eucharistic Procession of the Ninth Eucharistic Congress
in Saint Paul Minnesota in 1941.

“Our reasons for desiring to process once more for our Eucharistic Jesus can be said no better than in the words of Father Frederick W. Faber’s beautiful treatise on the Blessed Sacrament.” This article was found in the old editions of the Catholic Bulletin.

In Eucharistic Processions we process toward our heavenly home in the company of God. Procession is the function of faith, which burns in our hearts and beams in our faces, and makes our voices tremulous with emotion as our ‘Lauda Sion’ bids defiance to an unbelieving world.

It is the function of hope, for we bear with us our heaven which is on earth already, our reward Who has put Himself into our hands as it were in pledge, and so we make the powers of hell to tremble while we tell them by shout and song how sure we are of heaven, and the Adorable Sacrament, meanwhile flashing radiance unbearable into the terrified intelligences of our unseen foes.

It is the function of love, for it is the timid, happy, heartfelt, venturous use of our right to be familiar with Him.

The Procession is moreover a pathetic representation to Him of all life, private, social, political and ecclesiastical; for what are all lives of men and families and states and churches but processions of exiles, pining, toiling, traveling home to Him, and yet through His Mystery not only to Him, but also in His company.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Popular piety

1674: Besides sacramental liturgy and sacramentals, catechesis must take into account the forms of piety and popular devotions among the faithful. The religious sense of the Christian people has always found expression in various forms of piety surrounding the Church's sacramental life, such as the veneration of relics, visits to sanctuaries, pilgrimages, processions, the stations of the cross, religious dances, the rosary, medals,[178] etc.

1675: These expressions of piety extend the liturgical life of the Church, but do not replace it. They "should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some way derived from it and lead the people to it, since in fact the liturgy by its very nature is far superior to any of them."[179]