Kevin Kelly/Key photo The Corpus Christi procession moves north along Mission Road in Roeland Park, from St. Agnes Parish to Bishop Miege High School.

They ran smack into 1,000 Catholics, including an archbishop, a bishop, Knights of Columbus, priests, seminarians, nuns and lay people from both sides of the state line.

But they didn’t mind. In fact, Bob, who isn’t Catholic, took off his cap as the Holy Eucharist and the fifth annual Corpus Christi procession turned the corner at Mission Road and West 50th Street.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said. “This is beautiful.”

The procession marked the fifth year in a row that Catholics from both sides of the state line have gathered in a centuries-old church tradition of bringing the Eucharist to public streets on the Feast of Corpus Christi.

It marked the third year in a row that the procession was co-sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., and the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. It marked the first year that the procession took place on the Kansas side.

The procession followed a three-quarter mile circuitous route from St. Agnes Parish, north on Mission Road, west on West 50th Street, south on Reinhardt Drive, and across parking lots into the 2,000-seat multi-sport stadium at Bishop Miege High School.

“We have walked,” Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn told the crowd at the stadium.

“We have made today’s observance a little journey — an image of our life and the dynamic of the pilgrim church,” he said.

“What is exceedingly clear is that he has walked with us,” Bishop Finn said. “You and I are not alone.

“In the Mystery of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ Eucharistic, he is always with us to the end of the age,” Bishop Finn said. “In every moment — in our joys, sorrows, sufferings and hopes — he is the heart beating and coursing with love.”

Though the day began gray and threatening, the mid-June sky cleared to a brilliant blue, painted with cumulous clouds, well before the procession’s 2 p.m. start. Although the temperature barely broke the 80-degree mark, the Midwestern sun was strong enough to bring beads of sweat to the brows of the heavily vested Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Bishop Finn, each of whom carried the monstrance bearing the Eucharist halfway along the procession route behind Kansas City, Kan., seminarian Adam Wilczak, who carried the crucifix the entire distance.

Though the faithful numbered into the hundreds and ranged in age from the elderly to infants in their mothers’ arms, only one altar server was briefly overcome by the warm weather, and he was quickly attended to by security personnel.

Along the parade route, the faithful recited several rosaries, with new leaders emerging within hearing range along the procession which stretched for about 100 yards.

Inside the stadium, the Bishop Miege High School choir led hymns, and Archbishop Naumann led a litany.

Newly ordained transitional Deacon Scott Wallisch sang the Gospel, a reading from John in which Jesus proclaimed that he was the “living bread.” Deacon Wallisch will be ordained to the archdiocesan priesthood in 2010.

“Yes, dear friends, Jesus Eucharistic calls us around himself and he walks with us,” said Bishop Finn in his homily.

“What else happens? What must we do?” he asked.

“We must make him known. We must go out,” the bishop said.

“In this annual procession, we make a public witness to the most extraordinary mystery of our faith — that God is here,” he said.

“The truth in Jesus Christ has a power to attract and conquer souls,” Bishop Finn said. “He told us that when he is lifted up, he would draw the world to himself. By the way we live, by the purity of our love, by our faithful dependence on him who s the living bread, others will come to see and know him.”

Bishop Finn told the crowd that their prayer in Roeland Park, Kan., is the same as Pope Benedict XVI, who on June 11 led a Corpus Christi procession along Rome’s Via Merulana from the Basilica of St. John Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major:

“We ask the Lord in the name of the entire city: Stay with us Jesus. Make us a gift of yourself and give us the bread that nourishes us for eternal life. Free this world from the poison of evil, from the violence and hatred that pollute people’s consciences. Purify it with the power of your merciful love.”

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