BATON ROUGE — A Catholic pilgrimage stopped at multiple churches in Baton Rouge on Friday as part of its journey to 65 Roman Catholic dioceses across the country.

It's called the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and it's put on by the National Eucharistic Revival. 

"This is part of a three-year initiative in the Catholic Church to inspire a deeper devotion to the eucharist in the hearts of C

atholics and to expose that love for the eucharist," Shayla Elm, a member of the NER, said. 

The pilgrimage is the first of NER's to travel nationwide, and it's one of the largest of its kind, following four different routes throughout the country. The journey ends in Indianapolis, Indiana, in mid-July for the first National Eucharistic Congress in 83 years.

Baton Rouge is along the St. Juan Diego Route.

"It's a message of hope and healing," route leader MacKenzie Warrens said. "Christ is here, present and with you in the Eucharist. He wants to be very intimately united with you the way that you are."

The NER teaches Catholics to have faith in the Eucharistic celebration, Warrens said. Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. Other denominations merely view the practice of communion as bread and wine representing Jesus' body, blood, soul and divinity. 

Friday's event brought out thousands to celebrate, starting with a mass served at the Sacred Heart Church. Self-described pilgrims then made a mile-and-a-half walk to Saint Joseph Cathedral in downtown Baton Rouge. Organizers of the walk said it was about showing how Jesus is always walking with us.

"As part of a National Eucharistic Revival, believing that Jesus Christ is substantially present in the most blessed sacrament, the Eucharist, the host," Mathew Dunn of the Christ the King Catholic Church, another stop on the visit, said. "We celebrated mass at Sacred Heart Church right down the road here in Baton Rouge, and then had a Eucharistic Procession, bringing our lord through the streets of Baton Rouge."

At the cathedral, they had a service, celebrating the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is on the second Friday after Trinity Sunday. It's also for Catholics in the community to tell their stories. 

One such group is Vagabond Missions, an organization that helps inner-city teens in Baton Rouge.

"We do a lot of conflict resolution because teenagers are in a very important time of their life, but we also do intercessory prayer and so now it's at a point where we have even the teenagers praying for one another." Lead Missionary Kendrick Slan said.

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will hold mass at the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans from 9 to 10:30 on Sunday morning.