World Youth Day is an event which now spans more than two weeks. Fifty young people represented our diocese and joined with two million young people from around the world together with Pope Benedict in Madrid to celebrate our faith. Reflecting upon the experience, Steph Price wrote that what struck her was ‘how we belong to a worldwide Church, seeing all those flags flying, meeting people from all over the world and really meeting the faces of the persecuted Church’. She added, ‘I will carry these people in my hearts from now on and I am so thankful for all those young people’s witness of their love for Jesus. It really showed how firm in the faith the young people of this world are, and that made my heart glad.’
After months of preparation, it was on a dreary wet morning that our coach left Keswick. At the time, a dark pall had cast its shadow over England with the Summer’s riots and unrest. Travelling through the country,
and leaving behind us the white cliffs of Dover, we sailed for the continent and journeyed down through France, over the Pyrenees and onto the high plains of northern Spain, before arriving at Valladolid sometime the next day. Our journey followed that of many of our Catholic forbears, student priests who trained at the English College in Valladolid during the recusant period when it was forbidden to be a Catholic and a death sentence to be a priest. To be reminded of that tradition of martyrdom was in itself poignant and to pray before the statue of the Vulnerata at the college was particularly special. We were also able to visit the shrines at Avila and Dueneas where some of the World Youth Day saints lived and breathed. The final day of our time at Valladolid comprised a wonderful festival with all the other pilgrims, a concert and an uplifting celebration of Mass.
And then it was down to Madrid. The city was thronging with countless pilgrims with people from every country, nation, background and tongue; flags unfurled and the streets and metro were alive with song and chant and dance and even outbreaks of flashmob with thousands of people. This was a city exuding life and excitement and everywhere we turned there was laughter and joy and a real sense of unity with all the pilgrims talking to each other, sharing badges and momentoes. Our mornings were spent at an arena which held 12,000 English-speaking pilgrims. There we were treated to catecheses from different speakers and bishops, praise and worship music, and Mass. In the afternoons, we foraged for food, wilted in the 45-degree heat, and awaited the evening activities: the welcoming ceremony of the Pope, the Stations of the Cross which were centred around the Spanish floats or paseos which exhibited almost life-like figures representing the different scenes of
the Passion, a concert organised by Alpha, and a Eucharistic Healing Service. All of this built up to the final vigil when all two million people gathered at a military airfield on the outskirts of the city. To see such an ocean of people was breathtaking, but to see such an ocean of people all praying together in silence and adoration, was a taste of Heaven. Of course, there was the added excitement of a plague of grasshoppers, flesh-eating ants, mighty winds and torrential rainstorms with thunder and lightning, but all of these just added to a truly unforgettable experience. Sarah from Kirkham commented that ‘after the storm, we were all grim, and suddenly there was all this peace’ and another young person added, that ‘for the first time I felt close to God, as though He really was with me. The whole experience has taught me how to pray and put my trust in God’
Summing up the experience, an experience that has given everyone so much more confidence in their faith in God and in one another, Rachel Turley wrote that ‘it was like NOTHING I’ve ever experienced before: fun,
hot, exciting, peaceful, crazy’ and another added that from now on they would like to ‘act as a witness to Christ in how I live, in love, hope, joy and passion for the Church’. It has been an absolute joy for all those who attended to see that the Church is alive and a new generation is rising, ‘built up and rooted in Christ, firm in faith’. Next Stop Rio 2013.
Check out all the photos in the ‘Photos’ section of this website. For Steph Price’s amazing blog (it really should be a book), see http://welshwomanabroad.blogspot.com/ and for Lizzie’s YouTube, especially the lightening spectacular at 4 mins 50 sec, and the Grease Megamix (or least version of) at the end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNGxUmanqw8 – it’s hilarious! And for Lizzie’s short write-up of the whole event, click here: Lizzie’s Reflections on WYD