Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Australia-bound youths look to strengthen faith, fellowship
Australia-bound youths look to strengthen faith, fellowship
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published June 27, 2008
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Youths from St. Theodore Parish in Westland have spent all year getting ready spiritually, physically and financially to travel to World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, in July. More than 600 local youths will make the pilgrimage. From left: Derik Peterman, Justin Leone, Kasia Lisiecki and Ian White. |
Westland In her day-to-day life, and especially in her ministry, Amy Roose is never far from Rome. That's where she experienced her first World Youth Day in 2000.
"I still have flashbacks to Rome," Roose says. "I'll be walking or grocery shopping, and I'll hear something or see something, and I just warp back. I can find my group there and see things and experience things. "It was a journey with a purpose, definitely."
A million-plus young people gathered in one place for Mass.
Languages from every country.
And everywhere you turn someone singing, someone smiling, someone praying, someone worshiping God.
Now 24 years old and the youth minister of St. Theodore Parish in Westland, these are the things Roose like so many youth ministers across the world is hoping the members of her youth group experience during this year's World Youth Day celebration in Sydney, Australia. About 640 young people, ministers and parents from the Archdiocese of Detroit are embarking on one of the longest possible pilgrimages to attend the world's largest youth event.
While World Youth Day itself is July 20, the pilgrims will be boarding planes early in the month. Nearly 200 of them will take part in a week's worth of festivities before the official World Youth Day week-long celebration begins July 13. Almost all the pilgrims will be in Australia for at least a week.
Local Catholic young people are hoping it's a memorable way to grow closer to God.
"Personally, I really like the idea of doing a pilgrimage an overnight stay, really a simple thing in the middle of a field with 30,000 other teens or something like that," says Justin Leone, 19, a member of St. Theodore's youth group. "That will be a lot of fun. I really like the idea of making sacrifices in my faith, to see the pope and that kind of thing."
Teenagers across the local Church have put the World Youth Day celebration at the center of a year's worth of activities fundraisers, retreats, holy hours and local, mini-pilgrimages among them.
Detroit-area Catholics will get a chance to bond with one another, as well, during the pilgrimage. On the Wednesday before World Youth Day, July 16, all the pilgrims from the Detroit area will gather for a Mass with Detroit auxiliary bishops John Quinn and Daniel Flores.
Joyce Francois, the archdiocese's director of the Office of Youth Ministry, says this is the largest overseas World Youth Day effort the archdiocese has seen. And because many participants have been preparing since Pope Benedict XVI announced Sydney, Australia, as the location of WYD 2008, the young people, parents and youth ministers have had a long time to get ready.
"I think the young people are better prepared because it was a long time in preparation, they had to raise more money there is a greater commitment for this," says Francois, who will head up the group who have made travel arrangements through the archdiocese accounting for 320 of the pilgrims. "We've done numerous retreats and days of reflections and walks. They fully understand the sense of a pilgrimage."
Sixteen-year-old Mariah Taylor of Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament Parish in Detroit is one of many young people who hasn't attended a past World Youth Day celebration. But she understands she'll be meeting peers from all over the world who share her beliefs.
"During this trip I just hope to become closer to God, and to learn more about my faith," Mariah says. "It's a good thing because you can relate to people close to your age. They're easier to relate to." While she knows Australia for its strong native Catholic population, as well as its kangaroos, Mariah says she's most looking forward to seeing the pope.
"Most likely I won't get to see him again in my lifetime," she says.
And like most of the young people, Mariah's going to be the beneficiary of extra prayers from the family that will be supporting her spiritually during her voyage.
"The whole family is excited," says Cheryl Taylor, Mariah's mother. "Everybody's been going on the Web site, looking up Sydney, Australia, seeing what it's like. Nothing like this has ever happened in our family.
"She knows this is truly a blessing for her, and I'm so excited."
While in Australia, most of the pilgrims will be staying in venues that accommodate large groups most commonly schools, gymnasiums and church halls. Each day, they'll have a series of events to attend, usually starting with a Mass or prayer service in the morning, and a day's worth of worshiping and meeting new friends.
From Detroit, most of the young people who are going had to raise around $4,000 for the pilgrimage. For most, it's meant two or three year's worth of holding regular fundraisers and socking away what might have been spending money.
At St. Theodore, the four members of the youth group who will be going on the pilgrimage have realized that their World Youth Day pilgrimage already had begun in the preparation. All four of them are from different high schools. Roose says they've become "like family" in their World Youth Day preparation.
St. Theodore youth group member Kasia Lisiecki, 16, agreed.
"We've bonded in many different ways," Kasia says. "We've started walking with our backpacks and have had funny experiences getting to know each other. Growing from each other's experiences in Christ has helped me grow." And hearing all the faith-affirming stories from Roose about a previous World Youth Day, she adds that she's eager to make some memories of her own as her pilgrimage "Down Under" culminates.
"Just hearing stories of her past World Youth Day experiences, too, have been very interesting," Kasia says. "I'm looking forward to experiencing that for myself."
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