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World Youth Day 2008

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YAM went on a pilgrimage to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, on July 12-21, 2008.

What began by John Paul II in the early 1980’s as an invitation to young people, ages 18 -35, to attend an International Jubilee of Youth in St. Peter's Square has grown to be the single largest, international gathering of young people the world has ever seen. In 1984 more than 300,000 young people from all over the world responded to his invitation. Today the size and scale of WYD exceeds that of the Olympic Games or the Rugby World Cup. In Cologne, Germany, host of the last international WYD in 2005, over 1.2 million people attended the Final Mass. WYD attracts pilgrims from some 200 nations.

World Youth Day Reflection

The Long and Short of It

The long and short of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney is this: it was awesome!  I had never been on a WYD pilgrimage nor had I ever really met any of my fellow YAM pilgrims, save Dorothy (who, as we now know post-WYD knows everybody).  I simply showed up at Hartsfield in the dark hours of a Saturday morning, having checked my body and my bag with the airline and my drooping spirit with the Lord, entrusting this brand new experience to his providential way of doing things.  And he doesn’t disappoint!  I’d like to share with all y’all a slice of my experience down under and how God was speaking to me through that week of pilgrimage.

In his High Priestly Prayer, Jesus begs the Father on our behalf: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21, emphasis added).  This was Jesus’ last holy hour, if you will, before his arrest and all that follows, and he offered it for us, praying that by the unity of the members of his body the Church others who do not believe in him might know the awesomeness of a life lived in the love of the Trinity.  Never before had I been one with so many people.  Everyone – Catholic youth and young adults from the Americas, Asia, Africa, India, Europe, Australia, even Iraq – was united in ecstatic joy at having the Popemobile drive by with the successor to Peter within, in bringing Christian joy and hope to a massive and mostly secular metropolis, in celebrating being redeemed children of God, in the simple fact of being in Australia with kangaroos and koala bears, and most importantly in receiving Our Lord himself in Word and Sacrament.

Pope Benedict selected Acts 1:8 as the theme for WYD ’08 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”  It didn’t take too long for the fact to hit me that the Holy Spirit has indeed been busy working through individual people’s lives, drawing the many into the One Body of Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit who is the bonding force of unity that Jesus prayed so earnestly for and the Holy Spirit who is still working in and through the Church and her members.  We even pray for this unity at every Mass in the Eucharistic Prayer: “May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit.”

I know I was edified by the solidarity of our Catholic family that I witnessed in Sydney.  Such a oneness in the Christian life (and on pilgrimage) often requires personal sacrifice and is only possible through the grace offered to us through the Holy Spirit.

Many thanks to Dorothy Polchinski and Yvonne Noggle and the whole YAM crew!  Hope to see you in Madrid!!!

Michael Silloway
Seminarian
Archdiocese of Atlanta

Georgia Bulletin Articles

August 8, 2008: Youth Of The World Unforgettable For Atlantans

July 17, 2008: North Georgia Young Adults, Youth Trek To Sydney