Dominique and I decided to attend the English Catechesis at the English hub again. Vincent felt too tired and so stayed at home to rest.
Catechesis with at the English hub was held by Archbishop Timothy Duncan of New York. He was truly a New Yorkers through and through. You can almost imagine him standing on the stage not giving Christian teaching but a stand up comedy.
The final theme of this year was "Discipleship of the World".
He reminds us that we are to be missionaries and evangelists of the world, it is our Christian calling.
He tells us four tools of evangelization.
The first is to have charity with love, as charity without love can be provided by governments and other charitable organizations, but christians are asked to give more, charity with love is the key difference between what we offer.
The second is to always carry Joy, as blessed Mother Teresa taught, Joy spells: Jesus first, others second, yourself last.
The third is to always carry hope, one of our biggest weapon against despair. Hope in that we believe in God and we believe that He is one who keeps His promises!
Finally the fourth is to have Passionate love for the Church. The church is the people, we are told in the bible that Jesus and the church are one, it is the bride, the body of Christ. If we are to love Jesus then we must also love the church.
Just before Mass a man manages to get onto the stage and said "You talk about Jesus in the day, but it's drugs, sex and rock and roll at night, what sort of Christian are you?"
Many of the people there were really shocked. But then the young people got up and started to chant Jesus name as the man was escorted out.
We are not afraid! These people who so misunderstand the meaning of this gathering, I feel sorry for them, I hope he can get a real chance to talk to a priest or someone who can explain to him what world youth day really is.
If one looks clearly without prejudice at current and past world youth days, they will not see what this man saw but be amazed at the good behavior from all the million youths gathered into this city. Many of them live out their faith with joy and grace. Admittedly some of them can be noisy with their chantings and singing, but the atmosphere is still very happy and peaceful. You cannot say the same for other non-Christian youth gatherings of this size!
Here is a shot of the Mass celebrated by over 300 priests and 50 bishops!
There were some amazing praise and worship songs sung that I'm looking forward to using at home.
I've been wanting to take a shot of this sign at the metro stop of our apartment for ages. C. Amor de Dios!
We met back up again at home first before heading out for lunch and then joining the Station of the Cross.
To our amazement, there was a pilgrim menu at The Westin! A 5 star hotel!!!
Here we are sharing a table with a group from Holland. They gave us some delicious Holland cookie. It was a bit like thin wafers with maple syrup and apple sauce in between. Yum!
The lunch was just sandwiches and average, somehow eating in a five star hotel seemed to have made up for it!
Finally we managed to find a spot where we can see the alter at Cibeles! By the time the event started we realized we were in the wrong section again as we could not see the stations.
Unfortunately another TV screen event for us.
This time we stood on the side under the sun as we thought the Pope will drive by. The heat was unbearable, now we understand how good it feels when we get soaked by the water being sprayed. Regretfully the clothing also evaporated and drys very quickly too.
Martin adopted his own technique of a wet towel to cover his head and cool down.
The station of the cross this year is different from the one in Sydney. This time there are stationary stations instead and the cross and icon is brought before each station, each time by a different groups of youths. There was a spell binding moment when the cross was brought before the station of the dying crucified Jesus. A flamenco style song of mourning was sung. It was beautiful. All the people was silent. Imagine nearly 1 million people silent, in contemplation of the cost for our redemption, the crucified Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
I experienced great sorrow at that moment, my heart cried 'I am not worth to receive you'.
There was a second of complete stillness as the song finished, then the crowd broke into applause. I wanted to clap too, but it would have been better if there was no clapping as it seemed inappropriate for the station of the cross.
At the end of the Station of the cross we managed to get near the stage to take a photo with the World Youth Day cross that travels around the world for each World Youth Day.
We also saw the Virgen de Regla,or The Sorrowful Mother of Sevilla. She is very beautifully dressed as is the custom of Sevilla.
I couldn't get close enough to take a picture so here is a snap of the printed photo in our guide book.
In the end we went back to the Westin for dinner as we still had two food vouchers left, this can be used for the one main plus dessert. It was meat ball and a delicious chocolate mousse.
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Location:Calle de Cerrajeros,Valencia,Spain
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