Hopeful Hearts Ministry

It was not about JPII, it was about bringing a much needed awareness of the faith to young people.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the great Pope John Paul II touched the hearts of the young church with the TRUTH and he did it with a great amount of LOVE.  This is why he was loved as a man and a great Holy Father of our church.  When Pope Benedict XVII came and immediately had to take over WYD in Koln he made sure the next generation realized he too loved them and would carry on this gift of coming together as one to receive renewal and encouragement in their faith.  Upon attending three WYD’s (Koln, Sydney and now Spain) I can safely say I have a decent amount of experience in what to expect.  When preparing for my talk on Friday “Rooted in Christ’s Love” I kept the theme of our Holy Father’s message in mind:

Colossians 2:6-8

So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.  See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ.

It was the second part of the verse that gave me the strength and encouragement to move forward with the message I felt God gave me years ago in Koln, Germany at the first WYD I attended.  I had this strong desire to ask why are they at WYD?  All week we have walked the streets of Madrid, watched young adults go in and out of the shops, at night they were in and out of bars, and at times when a big group would come together they would chant something that sounded like ‘Es O Es We’re Going to See El Papa’ …at this that is what it phonetically sounded like to my English speaking ears…I don’t know what they were truly saying but it was about getting to ‘see’ the Pope.  Which is GREAT….every WYD that is the highlight, being able to be in the presence of our Holy Father, to have our head of the church lead us in Eucharist, in Adoration and to bless us.  But the message our Holy Father gives is to keep our attention on Christ.  To remember that we are rooted in Christ by our Baptism and to not be seduced by the means of the world to turn our eyes away from Christ.  In my talk I encouraged the packed room of young adults to ask themselves this question….why did God bring them all this way?  It was fine to experience the culture, to celebrate with their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world and to exchange bracelets and have ‘chant wars’ about seeing the Pope.  But it is not just to see the Pope, but to hear the message and receive it completely.  To come together and be encouraged by the numbers to take a stand and fight for themselves, for their worth, and embrace the gift they have in being rooted in Christ.

As for the talk I hate to self-examine because I am my worst critic…but the response was a gift.  As I mentioned for Sydney it was the same this time, to have a group of girls from the Philippines come and give testimony to how the message touched them, a young man from Israel who now lives in Sweden wants me to come speak to his group (I would LOVE that!), and others from the USA and even close to home in our own Diocese.  By the end of the afternoon I think were were all energized by the Holy Spirit and ready to embrace what the Lord had to offer in the climax of this pilgrimage.

That evening was the Stations and for the first time at WYD we did not attend in person.  Instead we watched it like the rest of the world on the TV in the hotel lobby.  Why?  Because I’m not certain Spain was prepared for the 2 million pilgrims that had overtaken Madrid.  Where they had Stations set up it was just as small a venue as the opening Mass.   We had two girls go down with heat exhaustion from the Opening Mass and it took them a few days to fully recover.  The day before when the Pope came to Madrid and addressed the pilgrims it was another push and shove experience and no one wanted to go through that again.

Thanks be to God, though, He knew this was something I would have loved to have seen and that evening after being out with the group a few blocks up from our hotel off Gran Via in Madrid we got a special gift.  We were walking back to our hotel and it was about 1:30am (let me explain quickly the reasoning for being out so late…did you know Spain time is not like USA time? 🙂  They don’t get going till 10am, they have lunch between 2:30-4pm and then dinner not till between 9pm – 12am)…it took a long while for my body to adjust to eating a meal at 11pm!!  Okay, so we were out in the main square and hear an ominous sound of drums.  It was very slow and methodical…eerie.  Just the sound of the ‘thwamp…thwamp’ caused my heart to stir with emotion.  We all looked around to see where it could be coming from and then slowly this float like in a parade very slowly begins to come into view.  In front of this float is a group of older men and women dressed all in black walking very slowly.  Finally as the drums get louder we can see what is on the float and it is a life size statue of Jesus carrying the cross and surrounding it are 3 foot skinny candles, tons of them, all lit.  We stood there in awe and I fought back the tears that threatened to come, making my throat tight.  They float stopped directly in front of us and then the drums ceased.  They seemed to be waiting for something and yet we couldn’t see another float behind them.  I was conflicted of what to do because by now it was 1:45am and we still needed to get to bed in order to go to Mass by 7:30am the following day.

We decided to go ahead and walk to the hotel when we came up to what must have been the end of the procession.  Again we were in awe.  There was a full band waiting to pick up their instruments and play…and on the float was a gigantic statue of our Blessed Mother in a huge robe fit for a queen, not like her usual robe.  On her head was a crown at that was at least 3 feet high and in front of her were rows and rows of these 3 foot candles.  They were lighting them as we watched and then we saw there underneath this float were MEN bent over waiting to STAND UP and walk with the float on their shoulders.  We hadn’t noticed this before that there were actual men underneath carrying these floats.  At this point I knew it wasn’t the Stations but more like the Mysteries?  I still have yet to find out what this group was but it was an amazing site. I didn’t have my phone with me to take pictures but later I will post them as others who were with me send them in.  On the plane ride home yesterday I spoke to a young gentleman from Mexico City about this experience and he told me he believed it was a tradition in Spain called ‘Steps’.  But I have not been able to confirm this.

When we walked home we were all quiet.  I don’t know what the rest of my group was thinking, and it could possibly be they were tired…but I know for myself seeing these depictions of Christ on the Cross and then our Blessed Mother in her Annunciation  it left me with a peculiar feeling.  This was the first feeling of a heaviness on my chest…the feeling of oppression I get at times when things just aren’t ‘right’.  On the walk home I tried to pray about it, asking God why I would be feeling such an ominous thought but I didn’t feel it go away.

It was now 2am and I had four hours to sleep before the pinacle of our pilgrimage was about to begin.  The vigil and Mass with the Pope was my favorite part of all WYD experiences and I was like a kid on Christmas morning anticipating the joy.

To be continued…

Blessings

Shannon