Opening Mass

It's Wednesday morning and we have just began our first day of catechesis. Our first few days with EF Tours were great (especially the food) and now we embark on the heart of our pilgrimage. We began yesterday with a gathering at the Jesuit school in Sydney, St. Aloysius. St. Aloysius has been very kind to our group and hosted a welcome for all the visiting Jesuit schools in the morning. Showing off our boisterous American voices to the crowd, we sand "The Heart of Texas" and also joined St. Joseph's Prep (Phila) for a rendition of the National Anthem. Other Jesuit schools equally wowed us with their musical talents. Lots of socializing in the school's courtyard during tea time and lunch. We soon realized that we needed more USA flags and spirit to match all other guest countries. St. Aloysius College is located across the harbor from the Sydney Opera House and it offers an amazing view of the entire harbor, especially at night. After the Jesuit gathering, all the groups left to walk across the harbor bridge into downtown Sydney.

Each day since we have arrived we have seen more and more pilgrims with flags and pilgrim passports walking the streets of Sydney. Now the streets are flooded with young people waving and cheering to each other, all eagerly excited to begin WYD2008. Walking across the harbor bridge gave us a chance to talk in small groups about what we hoped to experience during this first day of WYD. Although the Opening Mass began at 4:30, we anticipated the enormous crowd and arrived around 2pm to save a spot. As we walked along the long path to the central Mass entrance behind a Lebanese and Iraqi pilgrim group, we slowly began to see glimpses of the enormity of this WYD. Mr. Hough (2-time WYD veteran) was determined to finagle a spot close to the altar to see Cardinal Pell up close. Luckily, we got there early enough to find small openings in a close area and slowly expand our territory over the next 2 hours. Surrounded by German and French pilgrims, we used the next 2 hours before Mass began to read our Catholic Cathecism handbooks and Pilgrim guides. After sitting down for so long, we hardly realized how many people had filtered into the harbor Mass area. As we finally came to our feet, a sea of waving flags and cheering pilgrims surrounded our Jesuit Dallas group. To our right, were seated priests from many countries and behind the altar, bishops and cardinals accompanied by a church choir. With the entrance of Cardinal Pell to the WYD2008 theme song, "Receive the Power" thousand of pilgrims rose to their feet and joined in song. If anyone had any doubts about the magnitude of our pilgrimage, this uncertainty seemed to wash away with the joined voices praising God. With readings in Italian, Spanish, French, Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, German, and English (and more that I am forgetting), the Mass appealed to all pilgrims. The Gospel reading of the sower and the seeds was used by Cardinal Pell in his homily to call upon eac pilgrim to question his or her personal motivation for WYD2008. To see a strongly planted seed encountering adversity in maturity and adoloscence and being open to find the spiritual norishment to break free of those barriers and continue to flourish. Mass concluded in the dark as the temperature dropped but spirits remained high as the music continued with the first concert of WYD.

The remainder of the evening was spent gathered together talking and singing while we waited in the loooooong line for "pilgrim food". All around us pilgrim groups gathered with clergy hearing confessions, exploring Catholic catechism, praying the rosary together. In our own group, our young men used the opportunity to talk about specific parts of the day they had enjoyed and questions that had arisen during the day. A certain freedom was found to ask Mr. Hough, Mr. Doherty, or Mr. Kolker spiritual questions that had always plagued us but never before experienced the right setting to pose our thoughts to a clergyman. The long walk to the Sydney central train station was marked by cheering crowds, waving flags from across the globe, and slapping high-fives from pilgrims clamoring at the gates. Our our chants of the Jesuit Yell, USA, Star Spangled Banner were matched by "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" and "New Zealand" yells of our neighboring pilgrims. Catching the train and concluding the night at St. Aloysius before returning to respective home-stay families, we ended the evening with the WYD theme song "Receive the Power" and a personal reflection from Mr. Travers. If you had any doubt that your son would feel moved by WYD, let's just say that everyone sang the song with joy and are determined to master it by the Final Mass with the Pope.

Thanks for all your support and words of encouragement! We are having a few techincal difficulties posting all the pictures but will clear that up by the end of the day. Stay posted for more to come on this second day of our spiritual pigrimage.