That's what my friends and I did this year!
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Photo courtesy of Miriam Olzewski (IVE pilgrim from
the Archdiocese of Toronto)
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World Youth Day is an international week-long
event where young Catholics from around the world gather in one city to
celebrate their Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II started celebrating it
every two or three years from 1985 onwards, and this year, Pope Benedict XVI
chose to celebrate it in Madrid, Spain, a modern, cosmopolitan city that
continues to preserve its rich Catholic history and tradition today.
Our pilgrimage group first went on a pre-WYD pilgrimage
to visit Fatima (Portugal), Lourdes (France), and other important Spanish sites
like Santiago de Compostela, Montserrat, Avila, and Barbastro, to better
appreciate the Catholic roots of Spain and its surroundings. Like many
other pilgrimage groups, we culminated the pilgrimage in Madrid, where we
participated in various specific WYD events that were being organized all
around the city. This included a Catechesis session with Cardinal
Francis George of Chicago, volunteer-guided tours of the city churches, and a
large-scale Stations of the Cross that showcased Spain's best new and old
sculptures of Christ in different stages of His
Passion. The WYD events eventually ended with a final Prayer
Vigil and a Closing Mass presided by Pope Benedict XVI at Cuatro Vientos
airfield, where two million people gathered in dry, 40-degree weather during
the day and braved a little storm during the night just to pray together and
show solidarity with each other, our Pope, and Christ.
It was unforgettable to be part of this, and be
among millions of youth from around the world proudly waving their countries'
flags while chating, in unison, "iEsta es la juventud del Papa!" -
"Here we are, the youth of the Pope!"
The details of our trip can be found on the IVE
blog here:
I believe the pilgrimage helped us develop a
greater love for what the IVE calls the "three white things" of the Church.
The Union of the Natures: The center of our life
must be Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who unites both natures in His one,
unique, divine person; for in truth we profess that ´the Word was made flesh`
(Jn 1:14) and He is the ´one mediator between God and men` (1 Tim 2:5), and
that He is the Only One who has the words of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:68). He is
the resulting person of the Incarnation. In a particular way our devotion to
Jesus Christ must manifest itself in the mystery of the Incarnation; (and) in
His second humiliation in the mystery of the Passion—the supreme priestly
act—that, by contrast, makes us admire the profound “Kenosis” of the
Incarnation all the more… Intimately united to ´the mystery of our religion
which was manifested in the flesh` (1 Tim 3:16), and therefore united to our
love, are the three white things of the Church: the Eucharist,
which prolongs the Incarnation under the species of bread and wine by the
action of the Catholic priesthood; the Most Holy Virgin Mary, who
gave her ´yes` so that from her flesh and blood the Word would become flesh;
and the Pope, the incarnate presence of the Truth, the Will and the
Sanctity of Christ.
-- IVE Constitutions &
Directory of Spirituality
The second is Mary, to whom our
pilgrimage group offered our daily Rosaries. Spain has such a
beautiful devotion to our Lady, and many sites we visited honoured her by her
various titles, like Nuestra Senora del Pilar, or the Black Madonna of
Montserrat. Being on this pilgrimage opened my eyes to many facets
of her relationship with Christ--and her relationship with us--that I had not
had the chance to reflect much on before. The religious sisters of
the IVE the (Servidoras - Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara) also
all took on a Marian name with their vows, so it was extra catechesis for us to
learn their names and what those titles of Mary signified. Some of
sisters' names, for instance, were Sr. Lily of the Valley, Sr. Inmaculada, Sr.
Peace (Our Lady of Peace), Mo. Mary of the Blessed Sacrament, and Sr. Nikopoeia
(Our Lady of Victories)--all beautiful names of Our Lady!
Finally, the third is the Pope. Because
of this pilgrimage, my friends and I read "Jesus of Nazareth" and
"Light of the World" to better get to know our Holy Father through
his books and writings. Seeing him in person at WYD--just two meters
away from us!--and hearing him read his homily to us himself, was a surreal
experience. I still cannot believe we saw the Pope wave and smile at
our direction, and having had the chance to listen to him talk gently onstage,
while surrounded by two million people excited to hear every word he was
saying! His presence made me feel the "bigness" of our faith,
yet also how personal it was to choose to believe it and stand by it in our
world today. We also loved the Pope's personal gift to us, the
"YouCat" (youth catechism). The breadth of the book has
proven to me that our faith can be understood (with God's grace, and if we
tried), and that every aspect of our lives definitely has something to do with
our faith--from our personal struggles, to big questions about war, suffering,
and even practical economics. It provides a beautiful way for our
generation to get to know our faith and pass it on to others, especially after
coming home to Vancouver.
We left World Youth Day missing our crazy daily
routines, like waking up to the blasting music of La Voz en el Disierto--a
Spanish rock group consisting of seminarians, but with tons of great memories
with our new friends from the IVE family and our fellow pilgrims. We also
loved that we gained new friends in heaven, having learned about and prayed to
so many saints in Spain throughout our pilgrimage: St. James, for instance, who
was alive even in the time of our Lord, and St. John of the Cross and St.
Teresa of Avila, who were already writing what would become classic books on
spirituality even before Christianity reached Canada! (In fact, St. Ignatius,
another later Spanish saint, was responsible for bringing Christianity to our
country!) Many of our new Spanish saint-friends even lived as recent
as this past century: the martyrs of Barbastro, St. Josemaria Escriva and St.
Maria de Maravailles, for example--reminding us that we can be like them,
too, if we wanted to and tried, and so mold ourselves closer to Christ.
The challenge we've brought back home with us
after World Youth Day is to continue striving to live this holy life in the
amazing ordinariness of our daily lives. With the help of our
newly-rekindled love for Christ in the Eucharist, Mary, the Pope, and our
Church, we hope we can find ways to live out the answer.
For more information about World Youth Day and our
IVE pilgrimage, please see:
Official WYD Website - http://www.madrid11.com
IVE America Website - http://www.iveamerica.org
IVE America Official WYD blog: click this link
Salt + Light TV Coverage of WYD - http://wydcentral.org/
