M45 World Youth Day Inspiring Generations

World Youth Day

Inspiring Generations

Edited by James Kelliher, Jo-Anne Rowney and Paula Mendez

All booklets are published thanks to thegenerous support of the members of the

Catholic Truth Society

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETYpublishers to the holy see

b. World Youth Day.indd 1 12/04/2013 16:36

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Contents

Foreword

Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster . . . . . . . . .4

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

World Youth Day Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Reporting the Adventure

Julie Etchingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Our Universal Family

Christine Parreño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Say Yes to Jesus

Paschal Uche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Singing to the World

Cherrie Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

The Saints in our Midst

Frankie Mulgrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Rediscovering Confession

James Kelliher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Catechesis at World Youth Day

Paula Mendez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47


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The World in Union

Michael Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

The Pope, the Vigil and the Tempestuous Storm

Jo-Anne Rowney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Born for a Greater Purpose

David Reilly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Being Normal

Isabel Wells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

The Shape of Things to Come

James Kelliher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

All rights reserved. First published 2013 by The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 40-46 Harleyford Road London SE11 5AY Tel: 020 7640 0042 Fax: 020 7640 0046. This edition © 2013 The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society.

ISBN 978 1 86082 859 1

Inside images © Marcin Mazur.


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Foreword

More than three thousand young people from all over the United Kingdom took part at World Youth Day in Madrid . They came from many dioceses, chaplaincies, youth groups and movements, representing many more young people from their homes, schools, parishes and universities in Britain .

I was privileged to be with a large group of them and I personally met many of the young British pilgrims as part of my own participation at the World Youth Day event . As I am sure was so for them, it was for me an unforgettable experience of youthful faith .

World Youth Day is a remarkable and powerful gift for the future of the Church and the place of faith in our world . Pope Benedict XVI remarked that at World Youth Day, a new and more youthful form of Christianity can be seen which is part of the new evangelisation ‘in action’, and which can help those who are struggling in their faith . This was certainly our experience in Madrid . Many of the young pilgrims found new depth and riches waiting to be unearthed . Others discovered a new enthusiasm for responding to God’s call . Each of them has been encouraged to develop new ways of sharing with others


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the great joy of World Youth Day at home in the day-to-day reality of life . They are now able to bring that ‘new evangelisation in action’ here to Britain .

This book represents part of that great mission and challenge . I want to thank and congratulate all those who have contributed to it or who have been part of its development .

Here are many beautiful testimonies and reflections which speak eloquently of the experiences of these young people, generously shared in their own words . I hope that many young people, together with their friends, priests, teachers and leaders, will find in these pages not only memories of an unforgettable experience, but also something of the great joy and calling at the heart of World Youth Day . I hope that they may all be inspired to share in the great work of spreading the Good News of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, now and always .

✠ Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster



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Introduction

It is no accident that you have this book in your hands . It is in fact part of God’s plan for you .

Let us rewind to the Papal Visit in 2010, where our World Youth Day journey began . Pope Benedict XVI met with young people at Hyde Park for a vigil, inviting us to attend World Youth Day in Madrid . This was the moment when things began to change for us Catholics in the UK .

As many as three thousand of us took up his offer and, in August 2011, we left Britain for Madrid . The contrast in atmospheres could not have been greater .

There’s nothing like World Youth Day . Nothing else has the same level of scale, universality and happiness . It is truly a life-changing event . Millions of young people from around the world come together and share with each other their faith in Jesus Christ, their personal stories and hopes for life . Indeed, one of the strongest things you take away from World Youth Day is the realisation that you are not alone . There are countless millions of us out there, waiting to know each other; and, with all the new ways of communicating today, including events and social media, it’s never been easier .


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We came back from World Youth Day on fire . We came back with a thirst to learn more about Jesus Christ and our beloved Catholic Church; a thirst to be catechised as well as a need to tell everyone about our transformational experience .

We hope that, by reading this book, you will catch our enthusiasm and get a glimpse of the World Youth Day spirit . If you’ve been to such an event before, these stories should reinforce what you already know to be true . If not, we hope you will be inspired to get involved and perhaps attend World Youth Day in the future .

But you don’t have to wait for a World Youth Day to come around in order to experience its life-changing effect, for the UK is experiencing a revival of faith and we young Catholics are at the forefront of it . There are many national and local events where young people already gather to share friendship and the fellowship of Christ .

We hope this book will move your spirit and help you in your search for a deeper meaning of life . Look for what your heart yearns: to love and to be loved . As Benedict XVI said to us in his visit to Britain, “I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love . Jesus is always there …” Let us treasure these words . Let us believe that reading this book is no accident and know that wherever we are, and whatever we are doing with our lives, it is part of God’s plan .

Be part of it!


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World Youth Day Origins

The genesis of World Youth Day can be found in the International Jubilee for the Young held in Rome in 1984 . Thirty thousand young people from around the world accepted the invitation of Pope John Paul II to attend . The defining moment during the celebrations came on the Vigil of Palm Sunday, in St Peter’s Square, Rome . John Paul II said to the people: “What a fantastic spectacle is presented on this stage by your gathering here today! Who claimed that today’s youth have lost their sense of values? Is it really true that they cannot be counted on?”

The following Palm Sunday, during the United Nation’s International Year of Youth, the Church organised a meeting attended by 350,000 young people . The Pope then instituted World Youth Day, in December that year . At this point, the legacy was born .

The first gathering was held in Rome in 1986 . It was thanks to this day that John Paul II earned the title ‘The Pope of the Youth’ . The tradition having begun, young people started to prepare for the following year, when the event reached a truly international scale, taking the spirit and celebration of World Youth Day to Buenos Aires, Argentina .


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World Youth Day has been held every year since, alternately celebrated at diocesan and national levels all around the world . The principal celebration is always held in the Vatican during the diocesan years, with an international gathering staged in a big city, such as Madrid or Rio de Janeiro, usually every three years .

Staggering numbers of young people continue to flock to whichever place is named as the chosen city for the celebration . Each person takes a message of peace and hope back to their countries, continuing the original tradition that John Paul II started in 1984 .


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The full list of cities which have hosted World Youth Day is as follows:

1986 Rome, Italy1987 Buenos Aires, Argentina1989 Santiago de Compostela, Spain1991 Czestochowa, Poland1993 Denver, USA1995 Manila, Philippines1997 Paris, France2000 Rome, Italy2002 Toronto, Canada2005 Cologne, Germany2008 Sydney, Australia2011 Madrid, Spain2013 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil



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Reporting the Adventure

By Julie Etchingham

I’ve just googled Pope John Paul II’s visit to his homeland for World Youth Day in 1991 . There aren’t very many pictures of it - apart from some grainy footage on YouTube of the main Mass in the shrine town of Czestochowa . I clicked ‘Play’ on this and was transported back to one of my most formative experiences as a young Catholic . It gave me goosebumps .

All these years on, the images made me realise what an enormous impact World Youth Day had on me . The crowds you can see in the film are vast - a million young people gathered to see a rock star Pope in the prime of his reign . I remember the smell of the damp grass on which we’d spent the night in our sleeping bags . Bottles of water being handed out on an August morning . And the overwhelming sense of suddenly being connected to a Church which stretched tens of thousands of miles from the doorstep of my own parish back in Leicester .

It was a special moment not only in Catholic history, but in world history too . After the fall of the Berlin Wall just two years earlier, World Youth Day brought together


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young people from East and West who’d been divided since the horrors of the Second World War . Poland, aided by political pressure and by the spiritual support of the very first Polish Pope, had turned its back on communism and embraced democracy . We sang and cheered together - ignoring the language barriers - and trampled joyfully on the divisions of the past .

They were heady days .I’d been sent to World Youth Day at the age of 21 as

a media officer for my parish and for the Nottingham Diocese . We’d travelled across Europe by coach - a bumpy pilgrimage once we hit the roads of Eastern Europe and the sleek Western highways gave way to pot-holed roads, pitted through neglect . But the welcome we received in the homes we stayed in couldn’t have been warmer .

It was pretty straightforward to be a young media officer back then, because it required little more than a notebook and small camera . No mobiles, no Twitter, no Facebook . No website to write a blog for . In fact, my task was simply to keep notes and write a piece for the Nottingham Diocese yearbook - hardly stop-press journalism . But for an aspiring reporter, any chance to record an event, particularly one on this scale, was not to be missed .

The trip was one of extraordinary highs and lows . Apart from the final Mass itself, my most enduring memories were of the visit we made to the vast Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, preserved as a warning from history .


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Its horrors were still part of the living memories for some . A room full of shoes left from the industrial-scale slaughter of Jewish children . A room full of the human hair shorn from the victims before they were sent to the gas chambers . A room full of prosthetic limbs and crutches torn from those deemed not worthy of life . All kept in silent witness .

The trip to Auschwitz informed and underpinned our experience of World Youth Day . The human and political scars left as its dreadful legacy were still raw, but the joyful gathering of young people from across the globe surely contributed in a small way to healing some of the political divisions that had marred the twentieth century . A Polish friend of mine, who now lives in London, tells me that a friend of theirs met his French wife at the Mass in Czestochowa . Just one small example of how West embraced East on that August day .

Twenty years on, I had the privilege of meeting and talking to a new generation of media officers as they prepared for World Youth Day, with iPhones, laptops and hi-def cameras at the ready . In terms of communicating their experiences, they are living in an enviably different world . They can spread the word in an instant - capture an atmosphere, share a thought, chat to friends back home, right from the heart of the crowd .

It’s a long way from that blurred and juddering footage from 1991 . But however we tell our stories, ultimately it’s


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their lasting impact which counts . I hope that, in twenty years’ time, the next generation of World Youth Day reporters will cherish their memories as much as I do mine .

Julie Etchingham is a journalist and presents ITV’s News at Ten . She was a communications officer at World Youth Day 1991, in Czestochowa, when Pope John Paul II returned to his homeland after the fall of the Berlin Wall .


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Our Universal Family

By Christine Parreño

I don’t think I’d appreciated what being Catholic really meant - at least not until I got to the Madrid airport arrivals lounge and was promptly enveloped by a wave of Brazilians, Indonesians and Americans whose planes had just come in .

After the initial bewilderment at the noise, and the shock at wondering how some of these pilgrims had managed to pass off various items as hand luggage (someone was carrying what looked like a super-sized trombone and one group had a banner big enough to cover a house), it struck me that all these madcap people who were flooding the airport were my family . We may not have had the same blood or language, but catholic means universal and here we were: part of the biggest universal family the world has ever seen .

My friend Catherine and I were at World Youth Day as citizen reporters - she was going to be the photographer on our adventures . Fortunately, her Spanish was just about as good as my own was atrocious .

The day the Pope arrived, Catherine and I were standing outside a church in which a Mass for the Middle East was being held . And what a Mass it was . Since the Syrian rite was being followed, it was initially strange to


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hear the foreign ululations of the priest’s singing . It was something you’d expect to hear coming from a mosque, not a Renaissance church in the middle of Spain, but it had an astonishing beauty all of its own . The church was illuminated by candles, and flags and banners from Egypt, Iraq, the Lebanon and Palestine swung in the great clouds of sweet and heavy incense . Even though I didn’t understand the prayers that filled the old church, I understood that these people were praying for peace and forgiveness . They were members of the universal family who needed peace like no other, and perhaps that was why the sense of unity among them was like something I’d never encountered before . Their sign of peace before communion wasn’t a brief and polite handshake: it was a long clasping of hands; one, two or even three bows; kisses on both cheeks . Fervently, deliberately, they were wishing each other peace . My own sign of peace in Mass has never been the same since .

After the Mass I spoke to a young man who had been inside the Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral, in Baghdad, when it was bombed in October 2010 . He wore an Iraqi flag wrapped around his shoulders and told me what it was like to be a Catholic in his part of the world . “Very hard,” he said .

I understood his meaning more by the look on his face than through the words he used . I asked him whether he wanted to go back to his country . “Yes,” he said . Then, as if he was saying something perfectly ordinary, he added: “I have to go back to my country, to evangelise . Christianity is the only


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answer .” He explained to me that World Youth Day had helped in strengthening that resolve - when you see the strength of the Church, your personal mission as an apostle doesn’t seem quite so daunting . The Egyptian youth we spoke to after the Mass told us much the same thing: the best thing about World Youth Day is seeing that you aren’t alone; that even if you are persecuted for believing in God, there are countless thousands of people who are persecuted likewise, and millions who are praying for you . We asked participants whether World Youth Day had changed the perspective of their faith, and we were met with a solid affirmative . One of the Egyptians said: “It is good to see there are so many people like us . In our country, Christians are few . We Catholics, we are the few of the few .”

The day afterwards, I met someone else who would probably also have termed herself ‘the few of the few’ . It was in one of the Tents of Adoration in the Parque de Retiro, one of which we had ducked into to pray before following the Via Crucis . After my week of interviews with the Iraqis and Egyptians, and encounters with numerous other nationalities, I thought I’d probably got most of the world covered, but the girl who sat next to me was from North Korea, a country whose people, according to the media rights body Reporters Without Borders, are “kept in a state of ignorance through tight control of the media” . I didn’t exchange a single word with her - we were, after all, before the Blessed Sacrament . But I wondered how she’d even got to World Youth Day and it didn’t surprise me that she was crying silently before


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the Blessed Sacrament . The most I could do was offer her a tissue and prayer card of St Josemaria, and pray for her .

It was an experience all of its own just being there in the middle of that massive, moving crowd . Even under the punishing heat, Madrid resounded 24/7 with the music of the world . Walk down any road and your ears would catch chants in Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Swahili - English if you were lucky . There would be drums and guitars, accordions and whistles, and the dreaded vuvuzelas - heard before they were seen . Many times we rounded a corner and walked right into an impromptu street party (generally started by those party masters, the Brazilians, who, if they didn’t have a drum, grabbed the nearest object that could make a decent noise when hit; innocent street-bins were taken advantage of many a time) . Once, on a Metro platform, we were taught how to do a dance and chant by a group from the Congo, who stood on the platform opposite . Another evening, we were dancing to the amazing Wala-Wala reggae band from Africa, and a Spanish guy showed me a notebook in which he’d asked all the people he’d met to write ‘I love you’ in their mother tongue . He wanted to be able to express his love of God in each language . He had seventeen in the list so far and he had only started a few hours before .

Then there were breathtaking times when all that ceaseless chatter, that deafening clamour, united in a mighty chant: “Viva el papa! Viva! Viva!” or “Beeeenedicto! (clap-clap, clap-clap, clap) Beeeenedicto!” It was an extraordinary


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M45 World Youth Day Inspiring Generations