World Youth Day Update

KRAKOW, Poland — we are now on day ten of our pilgrimage that has brought us to three countries, four if you count a brief stop in the Netherlands on the way to Spain (which I don't). I've been taking pictures and jotting down notes, and plan a series of posts when I get back to the States. for now just a few general impressions of the journey to this point.

We are a diverse, unwieldy band of holy wanderers. We hail from New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago and points north of the border in Canada. our countries of origin are the U.S., Canada, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Ecuador (I'm sure I've left some place out). 

We are 90 as of this writing, and are expecting two more to arrive tonight. All this was organized by Fr. Dominic Tran, director of our Salesian province's vocation ministry office. He's a veteran of at least five of these World Youth Day pilgrimages, and if things haven't always run with clockwork efficiency, we've proceeded with a steady hand guiding us through the ins and outs of international travel. 

As I wrote, I'm only going to offer a few scatter shot reflections here. 

The first stop was Barcelona on July 16. The following day we visited the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia. I'll write something on this when I get back, for sure. But my quick take is that this still under construction masterpiece is a testament to the power of a unique vision guided by faith. Antonio Gaudi, the architect, mixed elements of traditional devotion with a striking naturalism that defies categorization. It isn't modern in the sense we normally use the word, yet clearly doesn't conform strictly to what came before. Gaudi saw God in the ordinary, angels in the atmosphere, the divine moving through the forest, breathing in the trees. Rather than flattening out the sacred and painting over the divine, rendering the unseen as unseeable, the Sagrada Familia pulls back the veil to show that heaven and earth intermingle and that God of nature is no iconoclast.

In Lourdes I entered into the baths of Massabielle, the miraculous spring that our Lady told Bernadette that pilgrims should come to and drink and bath. I did both. I did not go into the waters for myself, but for my brother Joe who's been battling cancer, along with other intentions. Again, I'll have more to say about that.

At Taize I shared the faith with none Catholics in an unthreatening open way. As one pilgrim in our group put it, in the States these discussions turn into debates, and here it felt freer and open.

We had a brief visit to Paris and are now in Poland. I'll try to keep the quick updates coming (now that I have a steady wifi connection that will be possible. Expect a more in depth series in August and September. Please pray for us as we continue our journey. We are praying for you.