Lawrence Lam @ WYD2002
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Wednesday July 24: Through Him With Him and In Him I only got three hours of sleep last night. I volunteered to be the doorman so that I could spend the time writing yesterday's entry. That assignment was from midnight to about 3:30 am. I then took a shower and then went to bed. I woke up at 7:30 and rushed to Holy Rosary to grab a breakfast on the go. Thought I should've been extremely tired, God kept me awake and alert throughout the day. A lot of incredible things are happening and the frequency is getting to the point that reducing some of them to coincidences or simple willpower would be foolish.
The young bishop talking to us today was the Rt. Rev. Arthur Roche from the Diocese of Leeds. The theme today was "You Are the Salt of the Earth". His talk was mainly a sharing of personal anecdotes and stories. I was particularly touched by the story of a holocaust survivor priest. With a small bit of flour and a few drops of wine, he would celebrate Mass. That kept him going. He also made a lot of jokes which entertained us all. I expected catechesis to be a classroom-lecture type of thing but I did not feel that way at all. I would have also suspected many to "act" cool but this guy was a natural. I did expect more interaction with the bishop but I suppose that's hard with so many people present. We instead broke up into discussion groups and shared with each other. Today we mainly discussed the challenge of living our faith in our daily lives. For our age group in particular, we talked about campus life. The facilitator himself attended an Evangelical Protestant College which tended to be hostile to Catholicism. Andrew talked about the conflicts within his family because of denomination. I shared my challenges with atheists on campus. The evangelicals on campus are not so much anti-Catholic as they are ignorant of Catholicism. I took a quick bathroom break and while I was waiting in line, I got to talk to the bishop about Catholic-Anglican relations. He said the two churches were cordial but communion is hampered by moral stances. I remarked that many felt that the Anglican Communion would just fade away and he said "Yes it might. But that's a shame because it is a force for good." I got back in time for Mass. The music was great! We sang Praise Songs for
the opening and closing and even the concelebrants were clapping along. During
the We headed down for lunch afterwards. Lunch today was chicken curry and it wasn't bad either. We sat and ate in front of one of the screens set up around the Ex and we watched a Polish group performing on the main stage. We were originally supposed to go to a seminar on Habitat for Humanity as part of our social service project. I was personally disappointed that we would not be able to actually go out and help people. I was not the only one. We decided there wasn't any point to attending a seminar about what we could do rather than actually do it. We split up and took in other Youth Festival events. Nicole wanted to go see a number of different concerts. Terry had to go back to Brennan Hall because of his meeting point schedule and I wanted to get my Volunteer ID Card.
I met up with the rest of the group in the Automotive Building by the National Campus Life Network display. I got to talk to Fr. Lynch about the use of Lay Eucharistic Ministers yesterday. He said the whole thing was very disorganized. He was quite upset. He said that the concelebrants barely got to receive communion themselves and some of them did not get both species. With that many priests and deacons, there was no reason to use Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers (an ordained minister is an Ordinary Eucharistic Minister). He told me that he called the National Office and they told him there was a "breakdown" and that it would not happen on Sunday. The NCLN display itself was very impressive. There were computer booths with an interactive abortion quiz. Maybe I'll be able to use them for clubs days. The people who passed by were really interested and I think they learned a lot. There were life-size models of fetuses and they were even made out of a sticky-type of plastic that it felt weird when I held them. We went for the Sacrament of Reconciliation at Coronation Park, which was renamed Duc in Altum ("Into the Deep") park were 400 confession booths were set up. Out of all the action going on at WYD, I think one of the higher points that had the angels singing was what happened here today. Daniel Santoro - the former atheist, the former agnostic, the former skeptic had been intrigued by all his research in the Catholic Faith. He said going to reconciliation would mean that he is taking the plunge and returning to the Faith for good. So we picked a nice spot in the park and we went through the prayer book's Bible reading of the Prodigal Son and did a brief examination of conscience. We then looked around for a confessor. It was a very nice stroll through the park in the shade of the trees, with a light breeze and sun shimmering through the leaves. I had a hard time finding a free booth with a priest who spoke English. Many were French or German. You could tell by the little signs on the confessional which said "Deutsch" or "Espanol". I noticed some violet or red skull caps and jokingly thought, "hey, maybe I can go and do a super-confession with the big shots." Eventually I found a priest who had on a baseball cap and sunglasses. I did my confession and basically my penance was to basically to reflect on where Jesus was in my life. None of that "5 Our Fathers and 23 Hail Mary's" type of penance. I got to walk along the shore of the lake while I reflected. What an amazing place to have confession! The open-air breezy treed park is much better than the dark claustrophobic intimidating environment of the traditional confessional. I saw Dan come out "from the deep" and I thought I heard the angels sing the Celtic Alleluia. I wanted to cry, since I couldn't find a fatted calf to kill (in fact, dinner was a vegetarian pasta). Hard-edged, Dan, the disgruntled student was back in the Family. He said to Terry soon after "I can start accepting the Church's teachings on faith". Wow...he will also have a lot to deal with since a lot of his family is mostly anti-Catholic. What made Dan laugh was my question "so, is this the final nail in the coffin?" Dan laughed because it was obviously an odd comment for someone who is "born again". Me and my faux pas, but maybe I meant the nail was in the coffin for the old Dan, the Dan who died to sin and is born again. Well, whatever. Dan is ready for the challenges that await...
I went to see a little bit of Fr. Stan Fortuna after. Fr. Stan is a rapping Franciscan priest from the Bronx. I only stayed for two songs. One of his songs about the Unborn Victims Act. He sounded sort of like Eminem without the profanity, but full of Christian angst at the problems with society. There were a lot more people at the bandshell this time. There was no way I would be able to make it up to the front of the stage. I was probably at the other end of the field from the bandshell stage. On the way back, I wanted to swing by the main stage to see the last few minutes of the WYD CD Concert. We were walking towards the Princes Gates when I told Terry to take a right so we could see the stage better. That's where we bumped into Tina who said that she was so lost all day and she was getting scared. I reassured her that God brought us there; that He was working through us when I said "Terry, let's go this way". Tina related a number of coincidences today at WYD: meeting her High School Teacher and another time meeting her high school friends. The other day I talked about coincidences. I think God was using WYD to bring strangers and old friends alike together. What a great that is! Something like this can't prove God's existence to the unbeliever, but it does reaffirm one's faith to recognize His works in the world. We were once again tossed from end to end of the park because Terry and Andrew wanted to go for drinks with the NCLN bunch and the others weren't so sure. And Kevin drove and he had his car parked at the other side (I'm not even sure which side of the park we're on right now). Indecisiveness delayed us, which annoyed me because I wanted to go home to unwind. Andrew gave me this weird look on the streetcar and I snapped at him. Tina said our lack of sleep was making us turn on each other. She's probably right and I felt sorry right away. I decided in the end not to go home. I took a shower at SMC and plopped into bed. Good night. |
It is not my intent to offend anyone here. What I wrote was straight from the heart: uncensored, uncut. |
We had our first day of catechesis at the Newman Centre. I was looking
forward to this as this is where we get to interact with bishops around the
world: today's Apostles. We arrived slightly late but found ourselves in the
middle of Praise and Worship. I know the traditional Catholics like Terry may
not have liked it too much but I enjoyed it. I wish my evangelical friends were
there. WYD is all about rejoicing and celebration so I think it's appropriate. I
personally think the "charismatic renewal" will be a powerful force in
the 21st Century Church. One of the groups is YFC from BC and YFC from the
Newman Centre was there so it's no surprise. 
Eucharistic prayers people kneeled despite the Newman Centre removing
kneelers. Communion was served under both species. I noticed some people dipping
the Body of Christ in the Precious Blood. I read earlier that "self-intinction"
was wrong. I would hope they would crack down on it during WYD. At the end of
mass Terry's sister, Susan, made a few announcements, particularly to the Newman
Centre group. She said that they would make scheduling changes as to meeting
points. I was hoping Terry would do the same thing but he said that since our
group is never together he can't make such a decision. That's too bad. It would
have avoided our group from being split up like at yesterday's mass.
I originally registered to volunteer for Pre-WYD events but apparently they
did not need by help (in the hours I specified anyway). Bronwyn said I should
just go get my card as a souvenir anyway. She told me to pick it up at R.W.
Scott Public School. I went to an info booth to verify this but they told me to
go to the Volunteer Area in Hall E. I had no idea where that was and I was a
little bit lost for half an hour. When I finally found it they told me to go to
R.W. Scott school! I should have listened to Bronwyn in the first place. The
Dufferin Gates were back at the info booth by Medieval Times. So I walked all
the way back. I eventually found the school after getting lost for a bit again
in the Dufferin/St. Clair neighbourhood. They gave me my card as well as another
pilgrim pack. They ran out of Volunteer T-shirts though so they told me to come
again tomorrow to pick it up. I went back to SMCS to drop off the extra pilgrim
pack and returned to the CNE. I realized I lost a lot of quality Youth Festival
time. What a shame.
After Dinner we went to a seminar called "Be Reconciled to God: Muslims
and Catholics Dialogue". Both Islam and Christianity share the goal of
evangelizing the world to build a truly universal faith. I suppose this requires
debate and discussions between Muslims and Catholic theologians. Unfortunately,
there cannot be debate without initial dialogue, and that is why this evening
was important. I was glad this event was not a cheesy play like Focolare's
seminar. The Catholic pilgrims really did get to discuss living their faith in a
secular society with Muslims at this event, which was partly organized by Contact me: lawrencewyd@catholic.org