Imagine spending your summer with two hundred
and fifty young people, accompanied by fifty priests, religious sisters,
and seminarians, on a thirty-day pilgrimage across Spain. Imagine
that group joining two million other individuals from 193 different countries
in just one city--despite heat and rain--to celebrate one Mass with the Vicar
of Christ.
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.
My friends and I joined this celebration
representing Canada and the Archdiocese of Vancouver: three of us are from
Canadian Martrys Catholic Church (Poli Pelingon, Janille Uy, Catherine Uy), and
two from St. Paul's Parish (Susan Lee and Nicole Hauck). We joined a
pilgrimage group organized by the North American religious family of the
Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), a community of religious with the unique
charism of evangelizing all cultures. The IVE consists of both priests
and religious sisters who work in various missions or live out the
contemplative life around the world, and during our pilgrimage, we had a chance
to hang out with fifty IVE priests, sisters, and seminarians, and over two
hundred other youths from across North America, and share with each other our
experiences of our faith.
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 first is the Eucharist, the body
and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord, and the Source and Summit of our
faith. Every morning of our pilgrimage started with Mass, and doing
this for thirty days made us appreciate the habit of starting each day
with prayer, before things got busy with our various excursions
activities. Time with the Blessed Sacrament, especially at
Communion, invited us to collect ourselves and speak to Christ from the heart,
and to offer the rest of our activities of the day to Him. At the
Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament during the final Prayer Vigil, I was moved
when we all sang "Tantum Ergo" along with the Pope and the
crowds. I remember reflecting on how many of us around the world
knew this hymn, and adored Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so lovingly and
reverently. The thought made me feel grateful for Christ's gift of
the Eucharist, as it unites all of us in Him, in His True Presence--whether in
Spain, or at my own home parish at CMCC.
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.
One other important thing I learned from this
pilgrimage was a little bit about how to live "simple" lives.
For a month, we city girls could only use what we could carry in our
backpacks, and every night we had to sleep next to each other in gyms,
seminaries, elementary schools, and even a Spanish military base
camp--sometimes with no hot (or running) water. This was something we're
not used to! As pilgrims, we also had to wake up early despite sleeping
late (and snoring neighbours), had to take turns preparing our sandwiches for
lunch and dinner or cleaning the washroom, and line up to use the washroom,
eat, or wash our laundry by hand...when we can. During World Youth Day week,
especially the vigil, we had to share space and amenities with two million
people, too. The IVE priests, sisters, and seminarians were keen to
remind us to always be "super pilgrims", and to live our the three
P's of pilgrimhood: prayer, penance, and participation. (Given what truly
counts in eternity, our pet peeves, busy madness, and struggles were not really
worth the pain of sin!) Of course, we were also strongly reminded to be
"holy" by the examples of Christ and the saints, whose lives were often
reflected in the breathtakingly beautiful religious art and architecture
we saw during our excursions in the day.
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:
