This year's theme for World Youth Day is "Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith" -Col 2:7
There are three catechesis topics chosen this year, the first is "firm in Faith".
We attended the English catechesis at Palacios de los Deportes with the speaker Sister Mary Gabriel from Sisters of Life and Cardinal George Pell from Australia. There was a massive gathering there. The arena was near packed and it could hold 12000 people!
Us waiting inside the arena before Catechist starts.
Sister Mary Gabriel reminded me that through my baptism I have received two very important things, one is the unlimited love of God, the second is that we can now in turn because of God love without limit. How beautiful it is that we no longer need to fear, we do not need to be afraid to love because God first loved us.
Everyday after catechesis there is Mass.
The music we sung was all Latin benedictine hymns, it was very different from what I'm used to singing in Mass, but I really liked it. Especially the sung Hail Mary.
Afterwards, one of the food provider company was there giving out the lunches. Most people sat on the side of the pedestrian walkway to eat, anywhere there was shade.
In the afternoon there was the NZ gathering in Retiro park. Sister Helen tells us that this year there are only 179 people from NZ that is attending. No wonder we were unable to find any of the kiwi flags at the opening Mass. There were many people there who were from Hamilton and Christchurch.
Some of the boys got together to do the Haka, Martin joined in as well!
It was nice to chat with other Kiwi Catholics there, many of them have also done a bit of traveling before JMJ. I guess if we make a trip so far away, it would be much more worthwhile to do a bit of travelling and sightseeing as well.
We also went to a Flamenco show in the evening, this dance performance has been choreographed to show the Passion, from Jesus' arrest to his death then resurrection. The show was in an outdoor park.
Half an hour before the show the garden was already filled with people, mostly standing in the back. I was a bit annoyed at first because many of the people there were rowdy and smoking. I have to learn to have more tolerance!
The show started about half an hour late. But it was beautiful, the style was in fact more contemporary with a mix in of flamenco influence, different but still extraordinary beautiful. Especially some of the Flamenco singers.
There were a lot of people who could not see from the back that decided to stand in the aisle. This blocked many people's view and in the end most people stood up to watch. For this reason some people left the show early in frustration. It was a pity for them because the ending dance for me was the best. Full of life and joy as the people dance in celebration of Christ's resurrection. The salvation story is complete!
As we were leaving there was a procession with a relic, I don't understand what they were saying except that it was St Terese. We couldn't confirm who the relic belonged to, however our guess is St Terese of Lisuex.
The Sol metro station was closed that night, we later found out from the news that there were protest there against JMJ being held in Madrid, the protestors feel that the Madrid government should not have spent so much money to host us here.
I do feel grateful to the Madrid people who tolerate us, it is not easy to have a million young people gathered into your city intending to have giant gatherings and celebrations. Must be difficult for them most especially when much of the pilgrims fill up the transport system and sing all the way from one end of town to the other!
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Location:Calle del Amor de Dios,Madrid,Spain
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