The work of accompaniment begins there, not with a grand initiative but with an encounter.

Last summer, I helped coordinate part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, a cross-country journey where pilgrims carried the Blessed Sacrament through cities, small towns, and rural communities. We processed through neighborhoods that had never seen a monstrance before, inviting people to come outside, to see, to ask, to join. I watched a man step out of a bodega in NYC, lower his bacon-egg and cheese, and make the sign of the cross. A group of teens looked up from their phones as the procession passed. One whispered, “What is that?” and someone nearby answered, “That’s Jesus.”

It struck me that many people hadn’t been avoiding the Church. The Church just hadn’t walked by their front porch in a while.

That same realization fuels my work with the Before Gethsemane Initiative (BGI), a ministry I co-founded to help the Church confront racism and build spaces of healing and dialogue. We facilitate workshops, retreats, and conversations that invite people, especially those who have felt unseen or misunderstood, to experience belonging rooted in the dignity of being made in God’s image. Through both of these experiences, I’ve learned that people, especially young people, don’t need us to have every answer. They need us to be present, to listen, and to see them as more than their circumstances or their labels.

The heart of accompaniment is staying with someone long enough to understand the story beneath the surface.

That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t rush past the blind man or the Samaritan woman. He walked with them, asked questions, listened, and revealed their dignity. That kind of ministry takes time, and I know that’s the hardest part for many parish leaders. You already have full calendars, confirmation classes, youth nights, permission forms to collect, and parents to email. But accompaniment doesn’t require a new program; it requires a new posture.

You can start small. Look at who isn’t showing up and ask why. Is it transportation? Cultural barriers? Is your environment unintentionally signaling who belongs and who doesn’t? Sometimes the most powerful act of inclusion is a simple change in how we invite, greet, and follow up.

When we center our ministries on presence, not perfection, we begin to reflect the Body of Christ, where every person has a place. The goal isn’t to fix people; it’s to walk with them as Christ does, through confusion, doubt, and discovery. That’s how the peripheries become part of the path.

I’ve seen what happens when we do this well. On the pilgrimage, young people who came reluctantly ended up walking in front of the procession at the end. In BGI dialogues, those who were defensive became curious once they felt safe enough to speak. Transformation happens not because we have the perfect message but because we’re willing to stay at the table long enough for grace to do its work.

So much of ministry is about showing up again and again, even when it’s messy, even when we don’t know exactly what to say. The good news is that Jesus never asked us to have all the answers. He asked us to walk together, to meet people where they are, and to trust that he’ll do the rest.

That’s accompaniment. That’s how we reach the peripheries — by realizing they were never as far away as we thought.