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World Youth Day
Community Counselling Service (CCS) is proud to sponsor the 2009 World Youth Day feature
www.ccsfundraising.com
By Cindy Wooden
The local and international celebrations of World Youth Day are not simply an opportunity for the Catholic Church to energize its young people and guarantee a future for the church; World Youth Day is a time to celebrate the fact that young people are an essential part of the church’s present.
At the closing Mass for World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, Pope Benedict XVI told young people: The church “needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit!”
“Each and every Christian has received a gift meant for building up the Body of Christ,” he said. “The Church especially needs the gifts of young people, all young people. She needs to grow in the power of the Spirit who even now gives joy to your youth and inspires you to serve the Lord with gladness. Open your hearts to that power!”
 The Book of the Gospels is carried at the opening Mass of World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, July 15. Sydney Cardinal George Pell celebrated the Mass before an estimated 140,000 people.
(CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 15, 2008)
“Thus, the pope is not the star around which everything revolves. He is completely and solely a vicar,” Pope Benedict said. The closing Mass is the center of the event because “Christ is present. He comes into our midst. The heavens are rent and the earth is filled with light. This is what makes life joyful and free, uniting people with one another in a joy that cannot be compared to the ecstasy of a rock festival.”
Pope John Paul II, who started World Youth Day in 1986, said the gatherings were not something the church organized for young people, but for the whole church as a reminder that it is called to be young at heart, enthusiastic and filled with hope for the future. “In young people the church sees herself and her mission to humankind: with them she faces the challenges of the future, aware that all humanity needs to be rejuvenated in spirit,” Pope John Paul said in a message to participants in a 1996 meeting held to review the first 10 years of World Youth Days.
The World Youth Day pilgrimage to different cities on different continents, he said, “builds bridges of brotherhood and hope between continents, peoples and cultures.”
 Pope Benedict XVI is accompanied by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney as he greets World Youth Day pilgrims at a welcoming ceremony at Barangaroo in Sydney, Australia, July 17.
(CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 17, 2008)
At the end of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Pope Benedict announced that the next international gathering would take place in Madrid in 2011.
Releasing his message for the 2009 celebration, the pope provided young people with the list of themes for reflection up to and including the Madrid gathering.
The theme for 2009 was: “We have set our hope on the living God.” For 2010, young people and their bishops were asked to focus on the question the rich young man puts to Jesus in the Gospel of St. Mark: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And the Madrid gathering will revolve around a verse from the Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians: “Rooted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith.”
The international gatherings may bring together millions of people like the celebration in Manila in the Philippines in 1995 or Rome in 2000. Or they may draw tens of thousands as in Denver, Colorado in 1993 or Toronto in 2002. But they share a structure that goes beyond bringing young people together to sing, pray and form friendships.
Cardinals and bishops from around the world lead hundreds of catechetical sessions for the young people each day. While the formal talks are focused on the World Youth Day theme, most of the lessons end with a long question-and-answer session giving the youth a rare opportunity to ask church leaders anything they want.
 A young man carries a crucifix during a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, July 17. )
(CNS photo/Paul Haring
(July 17, 2008)
The 12 young adults not only shared lunch with Pope Benedict in Sydney also stories about their lives and their countries. They brought him gifts, including handicrafts from their home countries and CDs of classical music.
Armando Cervantes, the then 27-year-old director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Orange in California, presented the pope with a classic Mickey Mouse hat from the top tourist destination in his diocese -- Disneyland. Cervantes, chosen to represent North America at the papal table, said he managed to eat the meal pretty much without looking at it. "I kept looking up to make sure it was all real and that he (the pope) hadn't disappeared," he said.
At every World Youth Day and at each venue, chairs are scattered in quiet corners where priests wait -- and usually not for long -- for a young person wanting to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
On the Friday of World Youth Day, the host country organizes a prayer service centered around the Stations of the Cross. They have ranged from simple presentations in a park to elaborately staged, professional reenactments through the city streets.
 A World Youth Day pilgrim spends some quiet time in a fountain in Sydney, Australia, July 17. His T-shirt reads: "Soldier of Christ."
(CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 17, 2008)
While many of the young people are tired -- and a bit grungy from spending the night outdoors -- the pope always leaves them with something to look forward to: the announcement of the city that will host the next international World Youth Day. They go home with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of e-mail addresses and Facebook “friends” to keep in touch with until the next World Youth Day. Many of them also leave with calling cards, brochures and the promises of prayer from priests and religious they have met.
 Pilgrims from Spain cheer after hearing the pope announce Madrid as the host city of World Youth Day 2011. Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement at the close of World Youth Day July 20 in Sydney, Australia.
(CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 20, 2008)
At the Missionaries of Charity booth in Sydney, Sister Milada ran one of the busiest booths, but, she said, "Without reflection and prayer a vocations expo is nothing. But it is effective in the context of World Youth Day with its prayer, the witness of young religious, the catechesis and the testimonies.”
Focused on the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Sydney gathering led the pope and the young people to narrow in on two very practical aspects of modern life: discovering one’s vocation in life and protecting the environment. “Being ‘given to drink’ of the Spirit means being refreshed by the beauty of the Lord’s plan for us and for the world, and becoming in turn a source of spiritual refreshment for others,” the pope told the young people. “Being ‘sealed with the Spirit’ (by the sacrament of Confirmation) means not being afraid to stand up for Christ, letting the truth of the Gospel permeate the way we see, think and act, as we work for the triumph of the civilization of love.”
The Holy Spirit, sent to Christ’s disciples after his resurrection and ascension, is the same spirit that hovered over the waters at the dawn of creation and gave the breath of life to all that lives, Pope Benedict said.
 Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George looks out at the crowd during a Mass for U.S. pilgrims at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, July 19.
(CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 21, 2008)
And, yet, he told them, “there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption.” Worst of all, the pope said, the “crown of God’s creation” -- human beings -- are threatened by abortion and euthanasia, drug and alcohol abuse, physical and sexual exploitation and an increasing lack of values and ethics. “God’s creation is one and it is good,” he told the young people. “The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.”
“Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. This is the work of the Holy Spirit! This is the hope held out by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to bear witness to this reality that you were created anew at baptism and strengthened through the gifts of the Spirit at confirmation,” he told them.
 Rosie Saldana, 22, from Houston, waves the U.S. flag and dances to music after a Mass for U.S. pilgrims July 19 at World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. About 15,000 young people from the U.S. participated in the weeklong events at the international gathering.
(CNS photo/Paul Haring)(July 21, 2008)
He left Sydney telling them, “Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished –- not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty.”
Underlining the fact that they are the church’s present as well as its future, the pope addressed them as “dear young friends” and told them, “The Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity.”
World Youth Days, Pope Benedict said at the closing Mass, are occasions to see “the Church for what she truly is: the Body of Christ, a living community of love, embracing people of every race, nation and tongue, of every time and place, in the unity born of our faith in the Risen Lord.”
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