This post is long overdue, but I have struggled with how to put my World Youth Day experience into words. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I will try to summarize what the highlights were for me, but know that I could go on for hours about the trip.
I went into World Youth Day not knowing too much of what to expect. Our group had gotten together on a few occasions leading up to the trip as a means of organizing ourselves and trying to prepare for our journey together. I wasn't nervous about spending the week with everyone, but I was wondering how we were all going to get along and function as a group. God definitely knew what he was doing putting us all together! We quickly formed close relationships and fell into an easy routine with one another. We had so much fun together no matter what we were doing. One of the highlights for me was simply OUR GROUP! I feel so blessed to have shared this journey with them and I cherish the friendships I have with them.
Another huge highlight of course was getting the chance to see and pray with Pope Francis! He arrived on Thursday evening and we were fortunate enough to get very close to the him and he even stopped in front of us to kiss a baby! It was one of the most thrilling moments of our week. The crowds just got bigger and bigger after he arrived in Rio. When he spoke it was never in English, but it didn't really matter to me. He is such an engaging, warm, and passionate speaker. Luckily we were able to look up the translations of what he said later. He had very strong and simple messages for us about the WYD theme; Go and make disciples of all nations. I have printed off copies of all his speeches and I continue to reflect on his words.
The culmination of the week for pilgrims is intended to be a day long walk to a site chosen for the final events at WYD: an overnight vigil and closing mass Sunday morning with the Pope. Due to a lot of rain the first three days we were in Rio the original site chosen for the vigil was extremely muddy and not suitable for use. The overnight vigil was instead moved to the Copacabana Beach where we had been attending other major events. We made our way down to the beach Saturday afternoon and got a spot near one of the big screens. As we settled in the crowd just got bigger and bigger. By dark there were so many people it was a little scary. The space was not very organized and getting yourself from the beach to the street where the bathrooms were was a huge ordeal. People were extremely friendly, but it was a little overwhelming. However getting see the sunrise on the beach and having mass with the Pope and 3.7 million other Catholics from around the world was probably my favorite thing of the entire week.
It was an adjustment coming home and I was concerned about losing the feeling of WYD once life returned to normal and our group was no longer together. Over a month later though I am still experiencing what I think of as the ripple effects of the pilgrimage. Every part of my faith life has intensified in some way. I also now have a strong desire to learn more about Catholicism (it only took me 33 years).
So to sum up this long post World Youth Day was amazing and life changing for me. The next WYD will be in Krakow, Poland in 2016! I hope to go again. I have posted a slide show of my pictures on this blog so you can see all of the cool things we got to do and see!
Thank you to all of you who supported me financially or in prayer during this journey.
God Bless! Dena
