On Pilgrimage: Memories of World Youth Day 2016 - 1st of a Series

I had hopes of delivering real time accounts of my experiences during World Youth Day, but irregular internet availability and the heaviness of the schedule made the journalistic approach almost impossible. I did take some notes along the way, so with those and the memories contained in my mind, I'll have to settle for a memoir as opposed to a report. The plan is to spend the next couple of weeks writing about my Pilgrimage through Spain, France and Poland, culminating with the papal visit to Kraków. 

World Youth Day (WYD) is not for the strong. More accurately put, it's not for the weak who think that they are strong already. Mention of this irregularly triennial event to the vaguely knowledgeable but otherwise uninitiated usually elicits oohs and ah's, to go along with a lot of saccharin about what a blessing it is to see the pope. But like saccharin, such sentimentality is a fake sweetness that leaves a strange aftertaste on the tongue.

WYD is miles of walking everyday in the scorching sun followed by thunder storms and gusty winds, alternated with cramped rides on over crowded buses and trains, on public transit systems ill equipped to see their daily ridership treble overnight. It is living in youth hostels that sometimes resemble army barracks, with 5 or six to a small room and sharing toilet and shower facilities with hundreds of others. If you are blessed enough you'll stay in a three star hotel that makes you wonder what the other two stars were awarded for. While the more recent WYDs have done a better job with food distribution, it can mean enduring food and water shortages. It means spending the last night in an open field that is normally a race track or strip mine, a landfilled swamp or a combination of the three, sandwiched between five to seven mile hikes to and from the site. There is nothing sentimental about WYD. It isn't a sightseeing tour. It is a journey of faith that tests the participants' physical and spiritual limits. 

No, WYD is not a romantic holiday to some exotic pleasure dome that happens to have daily Mass. It is hard work that, when entered into with a spirit of humility, makes the weak truly strong. World Youth Day isn't for the weak, or more accurately isn't for the weak who are content to stay that way, because WYD is a pilgrimage. 

I've been on two such pilgrimages - Sydney, Australia in 2008 and the latest one that ended a few days ago in Kraków, Poland. Fr. Dominic Tran, SDB who organized this year's trip, (along with Fr. Abraham Feliciano, SDB - youth ministry delegate of the Salesian's Eastern U.S. Province), is a veteran of six WYDs. He knows the ins and outs, and the spirit of what WYD is supposed to be about. We had a wide ranging itinerary that brought us officially to three countries, five main destinations with a number of side trips squeezed in over a period of 18 days. At times the stops seemed random, and maybe to a certain extent they were. But what I experienced was that we were where God wanted us at every moment. The path may not have been straight and broad, yet it was true and sure.

Over the next few weeks I'll be reflecting on my experience. I accompanied 92, mainly young adult pilgrims on this journey. Even though all were over 18 years of age, I'll be using pseudonyms when referencing any of them. The only participants I'll mention by name are the Salesian priests, brothers and seminarians who went along on the trip. This isn't an exposé, nor am I dishing dirt, not that there's any to serve up. I just want to respect privacy. These are very personal reflections. There are 92 other points of view among the pilgrims, so I'm not suggesting that mine represent the absolute last word on what WYD 2016 was about.

The pilgrimage had two very distinct phases. Phase one ran from July 16 to July 24. During these days we went from Barcelona, Spain, taking coach buses into France where we visited Lourdes, spent three days in Taizé, then making a stop in Liseiux on the way to Paris. After a one day two night stay in the City of Lights we flew to Kraków for the second phase. 

In the two days before WYD began in ernest, we toured the city, while making stops in Wodowice - St. John Paul II's birthplace, Częstochowa - with its shrine of the Black Madonna, and the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. While we were happy to be in Poland finally, without having to change loggings every other day, the pace didn't let up. In truth, it got even busier. We returned to the United States late Monday night - August 1, and many of us didn't return to our respective homes until Tuesday morning. 

I was a part of a group of 93 pilgrims from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington, DC, and Toronto - along with other points Canadian. I'm sure I missed a place, but you get the idea - we came from all over the map. The diversity wasn't limited to the participants' residency. We came from a mix of Asian, Western and Latin American cultures. Some of us understood what a pilgrimage was all about, some of us really didn't know what was going on until we were well into the journey. 

I believe that by the end each of us was changed in some way. We encountered the Lord in the liturgies we celebrated, in prayer and fasting, and in the people we encountered along the way. For myself, I got a clearer vision of life as a pilgrimage that constantly calls me deeper into relationship with God. I had a conversation with a Protestant woman from the Netherlands at Taizé - which I'll describe, along with the entire experience there in a later post - where I found myself giving council to her, but was really giving it to myself as well. The message was that accepting Christ as Savior and Lord is the first step, not the last. Accepting Christ starts a process (continues it, really), and can only be walked with the cross on our shoulder and eternity fixed in our eyes. 

These are the bare facts. In the weeks to come I hope to share, not simply the where and when, but the why of my journey. I did not choose to go on this pilgrimage, really. I went gladly when circumstances made it possible, if not exactly necessary, for me to accompany the six pilgrims from our parish of St. John Bosco in Chicago. I believe that for some reason the Lord wanted me on this journey. I believe that he had a reason for each of the 93 of us, as well as the 2.5 million others to come to Poland in July, 2016. Each person had a very personal call, that was, at the same time, wrapped up with a divine motive we all shared: God wanted it, not because I am strong, not because I'm holy - but because I am weak and am in need of His holiness. 

Just a Song Before I Go

I've longed, of late, to write something light, like a movie review or some piece of All Star Game fluff. I look at the recent posts and they're all unspeakably heavy. Like all bloggers I'm guessing, I have no editor. No one assigns me a story. An itch hits me and I scratch it. Unfortunately the itches I've been getting are more like rashes. Adding to my dilemma, there really isn't any thing in the cinema that excites my interest, and the Yankees are mired in mediocrity as we've hit the metaphorical halfway point of the season. All I'm left with is Brexit, race riots, Islamofacists on the march and a presidential campaign that makes 1968 look like your average middle school student body election. How I pine for a new Christopher Nolan movie to eviscerate or for A-Rod to do just about anything other than the prolonged career death march he's on right now - which is scheduled to drag on into late September 2017. 

I'm in need of a change of scenery. Not a permanent one, mind you. I'm very contented here in Chicago, at St. John Bosco. Just a temporary separation: not just or not primarily from the parish. I need a break from the United States for a while. I think 18 days will due. And as Providence would have it, that's exactly what I'm embarking on beginning Friday.

I'll be heading out, with about ten of us from the combined Chicago—New Orleans contingent, on a pilgrimage that will take us through four countries, culminating in Kraków, Poland for World Youth Day (WYD), which includes a vigil and Mass with Pope Francis and about a million of his closest friends. There will be about 80 of us all together from Salesian works — both official and unofficial. I plan on chronicling the pilgrimage. If I can't post as I go, which is a very strong possibility, I'll post it all when I get back.

I went on WYD one other time, in 2008. It was an experience that I'll carry with me the rest of my life, but I'm not sure it was a pilgrimage, at least for me personally. WYD was held in Sydney, and Australia was great. The people were friendly, and took obvious pride and joy in their nation, and in the opportunity to show it off to visitors. Being so isolated, they simply don't get as many tourists as Italy or France, and so, with the exception of one minor episode on a commuter train that's not worth getting into (the exception that makes the rule), the citizenry were truly gracious. But I was so caught up with being in Australia, literally on the other side of the world from where I'm from, I didn't always appreciate the spiritual dimension of the trip. I didn't go into the pilgrimage with this intention, but when I look back I can see that I was more of a tourist than a pilgrim.

This time my mind is intentionally focused on this as a spiritual journey. We're visiting touristy places - Barcelona and Paris - but also Lourdes and Taizé. In Poland we will visit Czestochowa, the main Marian shrine in that country, as well as places associated with the life of St. John Paul II. We will also go to Auschwitz, and possibly visit the death bunker where St. Maxamillian Kolbe was martyred. There will be moments for taking in the culture, for relaxation, and to simply enjoy ourselves, as their should be. But I the point will be to open up to God and allow him to speak through the places we will visit, the people we meet, and events we experience.

I don't share much about my interior life in this space, at least not openly. When I do, it is usually veiled behind whatever larger topic I'm scribbling about. I share now that I'm ready for this trip as a pilgrimage, and not just a tour. The Lord has been speaking to me in the quiet way that he does to us: not in Mother Teresa or St. Faustiana ways, in visions and complete sentences. No, but in that still silent voice that, if we turn off the phone, take the earbuds out, sitting motionless for a moment, we will hear too. Or at least, if we spend enough time in silence we will begin to hear. He is challenging me. Challenging me to give more of myself. Challenging me to grow closer to Him. Challenging me to trust more in Him and less in myself, in material things, and in human solutions. A pilgrimage isn't magic. I don't expect that I'll come back after 18 days and be a different person. All I pray for is that I'm open to the grace that God wants to gift me, and let Him continue to transform my life as He wants. 

I'm also going with clear intentions. One of my brothers has had health issues lately, along with a couple of members of my SDB community - so you know what I'll be praying for at Lourdes. I have many prayer intentions for those days. I'll be praying for you all, and ask for your prayers as well - for me and all the pilgrims.

I know the title suggests the this will be my past post before flying out Friday. I may get something else in before I go. If I do, I'll try to keep it light. 

The Popes of World Youth Day – the Popes of Mercy

I'll be going to World Youth Day in Poland this July along with a group sponsored by the Salesian Eastern Province. Here's something I wrote with Fr. Dominic Tran, SDB for the WYD Salesian Facebook page.

World Youth Day 2016 and the Extraordinary Jubilee that goes until November 20 share a common focus: the Mercy of God. This convergence of themes is no coincidence and these great themes came together as the result of the work of the giant figures, the shepherds the Good Shepherds has given to the Church in recent years—Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

St. John Paul was the great promoter of the Divine Mercy devotion and the cause of St. Faustina. He said, early on in his pontificate, "Right from the beginning of my ministry in St. Peter’s See in Rome, I consider this message [of Divine Mercy] my special task. Providence has assigned it to me in the present situation of man, the Church and the world. It could be said that precisely this situation assigned that message to me as my task before God." He beatified and Canonized St. Faustina and established the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. He saw mercy as the remedy for humanity after all the wars and atrocities of the 20th century: it was now the time to return to God and seek forgiveness and to turn to one another in a spirit of reconciliation and mercy.

Pope Benedict XVI, being a great theologian, gave us the theology of God’s mercy. With his very first encyclical, he emphasized, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.

In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. (Deus Caritas Est, #1)

Pope Francis also has stressed mercy from the beginning of his time as the Vicar of Christ. Just a few days after his election in 2013 he said, “God's mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones ... Let us be renewed by God's mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish.” He has never ceased to call us to be a Church of mercy, both seeking out God’s forgiveness and living mercy in our lives. He has both promoted the Divine Mercy chaplet as a “powerful medicine” but also called us to go out and live mercy in our lives.

In this way St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis can be called the Popes of Mercy. As it is said, JP II introduced the what - Divine Mercy, Benedict taught us why, and Francis shows us how.