Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dear brothers and sisters,
We just came back from celebrating the World Youth Day in Lisbon Portugal, where we met with the Pope and another 1.5 million young persons! We were 50 from here and went with the Christian Life Movement (CLM)!
The graces have been so many that a few days/weeks are necessary to digest! But at this point the thing that struck me most how large, beautiful, and amazing is the body of Christ! Our beloved Church is beautiful!! This is the picture the media rarely shows. And to be fair, I think if you are not there, it is very difficult to experience.
The Pope as the vicar of Christ, has this magnetic characteristic to himself, that he can bring together the body of Christ! In a world that is so large, and so divided, the experience of seeing so many people on their knees in adoration is truly overwhelming!
Not only that, as a result of this experience of unity, I saw how joy flowed out of our hearts, very spontaneously! For example, after one of the meetings with about 800K persons we were walking back and it was truly a human river, that you couldn’t see then end of. Everybody was singing, jumping and dancing. People were greeting each other with great enthusiasm! it is such a blessing to see so much love with just random people! Of course, they are not random. They are those who have recognized through their baptism that they are children of God, and did a huge sacrifice to be able to be there. We found people literally from the whole world! Korea, all over Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Obviously, the biggest group were from Europe itself.
Even though there is a roughness to the WYD like sleeping in a huge gym with another 250 persons, being able to sleep for about 4 hours a night, Unending lines and heat that sometimes reached 100°!But in the middle of all that sacrifice, the joy was overwhelming! Many of our pilgrims told me that they had never slept so little for such a long period of time! Not even during exams.
It was also very special to be with the CLM of mainly Latin America and some from Italy. In total, we were about 250 as one spiritual family. We went together to pray at Fatima. Praying for the whole spiritual family and especially here in Philadelphia. It was such a blessing to pray, and offer our sacrifices to our beloved, blessed mother here in Fatima as a spiritual family from so many places!
If you want to know more, please just ask me! God bless you! And have an amazing mass!
Fr. Carlos