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Aug. 24, 2016

WYD coordinator looks at the highlights of the pilgrimage
A week of hospitality, music, love

By Marika Donders
World Youth Day coordinator

A couple weeks ago, ten other pilgrims and I returned from World Youth Day which was a culmination of two years of planning, fundraising and coordinating. It was worth every minute of the preparations to make it all come together.  World Youth Day

The question I get most often is what was the one highlight for you? It is really difficult to answer with one favorite event or encounter since it was a week packed with at least a month’s worth events and encounters. 
Since this was my third World Youth Day, the highlights for me were not the big events with the pope, rather they were incidentals to World Youth Day. 

A saint-filled city
I think the first highlight was the city of Krakow itself.  The city is imbued by the Saints and they followed us around everywhere we went.  Saint John Paul II was ever present: on people’s lips, in various locations and historical moments. Our hotel was a block away from the Archbishop’s residence where he had lived and where he had addressed he masses from the same window that Pope Francis used to address the young people who gathered under this window in the evenings.

We visited St. Florian which was Karol Wojtyla’s first parish and the John Paul II Center which included the relic of his cassock from when he was shot in St. Peter’s square.

We participated in Mass at Wawel Cathedral and saw the altar where Father Wojtyla celebrated his first Masses.
The day we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau, I kept encountering St. Maximilian Kolbe: his relic at the Catechesis site, a scrap of paper with his image on it, a discussion about his life between two strangers on the trolley.  That day was also the feast day of Blessed Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite who died at Dachau. 

We visited the Wielicza Salt Mines which is filled with religious carvings made by miners and I met St. Kinga whom I never heard of before. She turned up again that evening as we prayed evening prayer at the St. John II Center.  We into a “random” available side chapel and it was not coincidently dedicated to St. Kinga.  And then there was St. Faustina, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Blessed Father Jerzy Polieluszko, … and the list goes on. 

The hospitality
The second thing that stood out for me was the hospitality everywhere we went.  The streets of Krakow were taken over by a million and a half young Catholics from all over the world.  It would be understandable if there were residents in Krakow who were annoyed by the inconvenience of closed roads and singing pilgrims everywhere waving flags and clogging restaurants, churches and parks.  And yet, everyone smiled and wanted to know where we were from.

Little Polish grandmothers with twinkling eyes who didn’t speak English smiled, tried to tell us things in Polish and when we didn’t understand would gently pat our hands or make some other gesture of welcome and shared joy. 

The most amazing hospitality was at the Dominican Church which is locally known for its ministry to young adults. The church hosted the relic the incorrupt body of Blessed Pierre Giorgio. 

Like all the parishes in Krakow the doors were open 24/7.  But in addition, the Dominicans had opened their Cloister and created a display of Dominican Saints and, knowing they were dealing with the internet generation, provided free WiFi.

In their back garden, there were bathrooms as well as a large tent with food and drink and places to sit and relax and listen to fellow pilgrims make music or talk with the brothers and volunteers. 
I think I could easily have spent the entire week at the Dominican Church and the pilgrimage would have been worth the trip.

The music
The third thing that stood out for me was the music, especially the singing.

Pilgrim groups from all over the world would sing as they walked along.  When we would walk into larger churches often there would be Masses being offered in side chapels and you would hear hymns or chants drifting through the Church. 

My favorite music was as we were waiting to go into the downstairs chapel of the St. John Paul II Center to venerate the vial of his blood under the central altar.  We had to wait because Mass was being offered for a large group of Croatian Pilgrims.  During and after communion, the 300 or so young people sang in four-part harmony without books or notes or sheet music and their voices reverberated off the marble and touched me so deeply that I ended up in tears.  It was the only possible response to such beauty.  All I could think was: we need to teach our people to sing together again, to create such harmony and beauty which will touch the hearts of all who hear.

Best part of every day
We do need to teach people to sing, to see the beauty around us, to be hospitable and invite people to come and sit and share their story so that we can invite them to encounter Christ in our churches and community. 
But then I realized that my favorite part of every day of our pilgrimage was in the evening as our little band of pilgrims would gather. 

Before closing the day with evening prayer, we would sit in a circle and share those things that touched us that day, graces received, struggles overcome, encounters with Christ in prayer, in talks, in situations or in the encounter with other pilgrims. 

I was struck every evening by the depth of the spirituality and faith or our eight young people, by their openness to encounter Jesus and their trust in the group to share some of their most profound thoughts and feelings.
These eight young people are each unique, but they also are not unlike the other young people in our diocese who are hungry for Christ in their lives. 

We have a treasure of young people in our diocese: ask them to share their faith with you and really listen to their thoughts and questions, and together with them, continue the journey of faith.

World Youth Day

World Youth Day: a pilgrimage, not a vacation

 

By Carter Pierce
World Youth Day pilgrim

World Youth Day offers so many opportunities. A chance to travel abroad. A chance to see the Pope. A chance to meet new friends. But most importantly, it is an opportunity to meet God in a new, more powerful way.

So often in day to day life, we get lost in routine and lose our personal connection with God. In Krakow, Poland, we pilgrims were given the opportunity to let go of our other responsibilities and focus more time on Him.

We went to Mass daily, spent hours in adoration, and prayed together morning and night. We saw His beauty in the majestic churches we visited, in the music at Mass, and in the thousands of other young pilgrims we met.
That is not to say it was all sunshine and roses. Along with the times of pure elation came many moments of physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. It was through these, however, that God picked me up to new heights.

Praying at the Center of Saint John Paul II in front of Pope John Paul’s blood-stained cassock, I was struck with flashbacks of a tragedy in my own life. I was overcome with emotion, mourning the painful memory. In that moment, I felt God’s comfort and recalled His healing grace which had provided for a miraculous recovery in both the Pope’s life and in mine.

In those most vulnerable moments, God touched us and gave us insights into life. For me, I grew in my understanding, my love for my family, my love for God and my trust in Him. God’s graces come in unexpected ways.

Then again, on Saturday, I found myself in similar distress. We had just completed the long journey to the Final Mass site, Campus Misericordiae, where the week was to reach its climax.

As the millions of other pilgrims around me filled with joy and excitement, I found myself weighted down by what I had witnessed in the day. I regretted the actions I had seen and in which I had partaken; experiences that seemed to chip away at our Catholic brotherhood in Christ.

Slowly, through prayer, I picked myself up. Then, a complete stranger, Claudio, came to me and confessed that he saw my “heavy heart” and offered to “share weights.” It touched me deeply. His message was exactly what I needed to ensure myself of our universal connection.

Despite different nationalities and cultures, we are one in Christ, caring for each other. My spirits instantly shot upward. From the pits into which I had fallen came forth the greatest joy. God’s graces come in unexpected ways.
Certainly, the trip was filled with pure joy. However, it was often in the times of trouble that I most allowed God into my life to touch me. Ways in which I had never felt Him before. Ways in which I never would have expected. I have come to discover that when I let Him into my life, He never fails to lift me up, allowing me to become better than before. In these moments, I grew in my relationship with God. I grew in understanding. I grew in faith, love, and charity.

World Youth Day is more than a time for sight-seeing and shopping. It is a time for growth. World Youth Day is not a vacation. It is a pilgrimage. And that is why it was the best experience of my life.
---
Carter, age 18, is a 2016 graduate of Heuvelton Central School. A parishioner of St. Raphael’s Church in Heuvelton, he is heading to Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.with plans to study civil engineering and architecture.

 

WYD pilgrims are launched into a culture that revolves around faithWorld Youth Day
‘Catholicism was contagious’

By Samantha Bashaw
World Youth Day pilgrim

Imagine a Catholic culture. Impossible to wrap your head around, right?

I thought so too, but then I made the rash decision of attending World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, where God gave me a deserving smack of reality.

Unbeknownst to me, I was heading to the most Catholic country in the world where 95% of the population are practicing Catholics!

Two years ago when I signed up for World Youth Day, I had no idea the kind of commitment it would become as a person of faith.

By way of plane, tram, and miles of walking, I was launched into the culture of Poland, a culture that revolves around Catholicism. 

Upon arriving to Krakow, our group of eleven pilgrims found our way to St. Mary’s Basilica right in the heart of the city. The Basilica was our first taste of Poland, and it certainly did not fail us.

The bustle and rising excitement of the outside market, quickly dissipated as we crossed the threshold. It was like a calm had settled over all its inhabitants, leaving only room to focus on the purpose this grand building was designed for.

The vaulted ceilings bore a rich blue color that was dotted with golden stars as a reflection of the sky, and everywhere the eye went, you could see that that reflection was of God himself. God’s presence surrounded you, but the evidence wasn’t just in the largest crucifix I had ever seen or even in the ornate statues of Saints that seemed to be carved from the Creator directly, it was in a lesser blessing.

After praying by myself I decided to walk around and absorb as much as I could of my surroundings.

I began to focus on the people coming in and out of the Basilica. I first noticed a young Polish boy, probably around the age of four or five, walk in to the Church, and immediately genuflect and do the sign of the cross. I was completely blown away by his sudden reverence that, wasn’t a result of his grandmother nudging him, but rather of his own accord.

A couple moments later I found a Polish family of four. Mom and dad were led by two little girls who went by one of the chapels and knelt down to pray. They had their hands clasped together towards their face, eyes closed, with a small furrow between their eyebrows, making me think,

“What could they be possibly praying about?” At their age I knew the Our Father and Hail Mary, the basics, but their prayer seemed much deeper than rattling off recited verses.

I let my eyes go elsewhere, not wanting to disturb their beautiful peace. When I had circled around, I saw that the family had risen from their kneeling position, and had begun walking into the depth of the Basilica. However, one of the little girls appeared cradled under her mother’s arm, weeping. Again, I was beyond stunned. There was no doubt that the Holy Spirit had impacted this young girl’s life, in a way that I couldn’t possibly try to imagine.

Those two moments had left me in awe of the Polish youth, and how their culture instilled the importance of God, as not something to be shameful of, but as a major part of who they are. Now, this was only a glimpse of day one.

We visited more churches that week than I can count, and prayed more than I ever had in my entire life.
Catholicism was contagious. Everywhere you went there would be crosses, pictures of the Virgin Mother, and numerous relics that gave the city an “other worldly” feel.

There was no other way to explain the pure graces we felt, than the simple fact that in Poland they live off a culture of Catholicism.

The ads we saw rarely showed the immoral behavior that seems to be everywhere in the United States. It was beyond beautiful and many of us wished that we could move to Poland, where going to Church every day was the norm and there was no fear of how others would treat you based on your beliefs.

That week made me fall in love with being Catholic.I wanted to emulate so badly what I had experienced in Poland, but our American culture seems to be too far out of reach to change. So, why not change the culture of my life and of our own lives?

We should not hide away from our faith, or succumb to the immoralities around us, but rise above and praise God as he deserves praise. From there we can impact others’ lives, just as those young children and World Youth Day as a whole made an impact on me.  
---
Sam, a parishioner of the Catholic Community of Keeseville, just graduated from Seton Catholic Central in Plattsburgh.
She will be attending Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, to study journalism.

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