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My experience of the World Youth Day - Lucy Nash
Picture the scene - a hot sunny day in Germany, the banks of the Rhine are lined with over a million young people. Many of them have been waiting there for about 8 hours. Everyone is very excited and happy waving their flags. Then you begin to hear a chant which gradually gets louder and louder of “Benedetto! Benedetto!” and a procession of boats starts to move down the river. On the first boat you can see a small figure dressed in white. As the boat passes by he waves to the crowd and they all wave back and cheer as loudly as they can.
The World Youth Day movement, started by Pope John Paul II organises a week’s pilgrimage each year and invites the young people of the world to come, at the invitation of the Pope, to a different location each time to join with him in prayer and reflection. This year it was held in Cologne a beautiful historic city. We had come to see a German Pope in a German city. I went with a mixed youth group from my local parish, the Oxford Oratory. We did not know one another before the pilgrimage. We were issued with special tee shirts which were fun to wear and enabled our leader to identify us. We stayed with host families in Düsseldorf.
What is it like going to the World Youth Day ?
Everywhere you go there are vast crowds of young people from all over the world chanting the Pope’s name, singing hymns and saying the Rosary, all witnessing to their Faith , proud to be Catholic and proud to say we have come here to worship God together. However despite the immense crowds and the at times deafening noise, I never once felt threatened or scared. There was no drunkenness, violence or aggression. The atmosphere was wonderful - everyone friendly, happy and excited. This was in no way a meaningless “fest” of overexcited teenagers as some of the sneering British media would have you believe. This was truly a celebration of what it means to be Catholic.
The WYD culminates in an all night vigil. This was held in the Marienfeld - a vast space of farmland outside Cologne. Here, over a million young pilgrims gathered with their bed rolls and sleeping bags to spend the night in prayer, song and worship. The official vigil was from 8.30 - 11 when the Pope was there. He led us all in prayers
and hymns and gave a short sermon on the Eucharist. By this stage everyone had been issued with a free candle and the night was lit up by over a million twinkling lights. It was the most beautiful sight.
After the official vigil ended, many of us stayed up. We went to a huge marquee full of priests hearing confessions and then to a marquee for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was so full that you could only stay about 15 minutes before you were asked to leave and make room for others. It was then about 2am and time to get into sleeping bags and try to sleep under the stars. Amazingly most of us did actually manage to get a few hours rest! Thank goodness it was not raining
The next morning was the closing Mass of WYD which was celebrated by the Pope. It was quite an experience to be hearing Mass with over a million young people many of them standing up still in their sleeping bags, all rather bleary eyed and dishevelled on a grey, damp morning. The sanctuary was a long way off but there were lots of big screens set up all over the field so we could see and hear what was going on. We heard the Pope’s sermon which was in many different languages. It was a simple powerful message urging us to love God, be faithful to the Church and specially to reverence the Eucharist and go to Sunday Mass. At the end of the Mass he gave us his blessing which we knelt to receive and then he announced the venue for the next WYD which would be Sydney to the great excitement of all the Australians there. Then we began our long trek back. It was really quite amazing that we all managed to get home safely from WYD.
God was really watching over everyone and keeping us all safe. Nobody got lost. The Guardian angels were working overtime! In fact as we were retuning from WYD we had our very own miracle which just showed how God and Our Lady were watching over us all. We had to get from the Marienfeld to Cologne airport for our flight at 7.30pm. Coaches were transporting the vast numbers of pilgrims and in the rush our party got split up. Most of us managed to meet up at Cologne airport but two were stranded. In a series of frantic phone calls they said they were trying to walk. We were all praying very hard for help in this difficult situation. Time was getting very short. Then to our immense relief they came into view. Apparently a lady had seen them along the road and had given them a lift to the airport !
WYD was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life . It is impossible not to feel your faith strengthened and affirmed by going to WYD. It is so easy to feel alone and isolated in Britain which can seem so secular. But WYD proves beyond any doubt that the Church and especially the Church in Europe is not dead or dying. It is vibrant and full of life. In fact I would like to finish by quoting something that the Pope said at his inaugural Mass earlier this year. “The Church is alive, the Church is young”. .
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