From cancer to healing: A pilgrim’s journey to the National Eucharistic Congress

Christina Wheatley, a cancer survivor, in front of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Indianapolis, where a welcome Mass was held July 16, 2024, to kick off the National Eucharistic Congress. / Credit: Zelda Caldwell/CNA

Indianapolis, Ind., Jul 16, 2024 / 17:50 pm (CNA).

“We are being sent forth on mission to make Christ known to others and to be Christ to others,” Christina Wheatley of Jeffersonsville, Indiana, told CNA on the eve of the National Eucharistic Congress this week.

Wheatley was among the first pilgrims to arrive in Indianapolis for the five-day event, which kicked off Tuesday with a welcoming Mass and Eucharistic adoration at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in downtown Indianapolis.

Throughout the day, cars and vans dropped off groups of religious sisters and pilgrims of all ages in front of the church ahead of the culminating event of the National Eucharistic Revival, the U.S. bishops’ initiative to inspire an understanding and love for Jesus in the Eucharist.

Following the Mass, pilgrims continued to trickle into the historic church across the street from the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium to spend some time with Jesus in the Eucharist.

Wheatley, one of the 50,000-some pilgrims expected to attend the congress taking place from July 17–21 told CNA her personal story of how she found healing through the Eucharist.

A cancer survivor, Wheatley said she was eager to meet others attending the event, to share how the Eucharist brought her real healing after her diagnosis — to “talk one-on-one, to hear their story and share my story wherever possible.”

During the COVID pandemic Wheatley, who is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion at St. John Paul II Catholic Church in Sellersburg, Indiana, told CNA she received permission from her parish priest to continue to go from house to house distributing Communion to those who couldn’t come to Mass.

But then she received the news from her doctor that she had colon cancer.

Despite her disease and compromised immune system, Wheatley continued to make her rounds, visiting the homes of her fellow parishioners to allow them to receive Communion.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’” she said. “I wanted to be Christ to someone who couldn’t be there at Mass.”

Receiving the Eucharist during her treatment, she said, brought her healing. “It’s something that you have to experience to understand.” 

And then, despite a bad prognosis, Wheatley had CT scans taken. Three days after her surgery to remove a tumor in her colon, she said, the pathologist told her that he had some “good news” that one “doesn’t hear too often.”

“There is no sign of cancer,” he said. 

And while the scans initially showed that the cancer had spread to her lungs, subsequent tests showed that whatever was on her lungs hadn’t grown. The radiologist, Wheatley said, told her: “So we’re going to call them scars.”

Wheatley said she is in Indianapolis to share what receiving the Eucharist means to her.

“I gained my strength and courage to get through my cancer,“ she said.