WYD Update

Today everyone's headed uptown to Downsview park for the Papal vigil and tomorrow's mass, so the crowds are clearing up downtown and I'm going to do some shopping and sightseeing today. A friend of mine told me that the Canadian dollar fell against the US yesterday, which bodes well for us shoppers.

OKay let me see if I remember thursday.

On Thursday I had to go the catechetical site that I was in charge of, which is a parish in Mississauga about an hour or so west of Toronto. The parish is called Salvador del Mundo, a Portuguese parish with a parish school in which a bunch of mostly US pilgrims were staying. I happened to take pictures of this site when I was there.

Because of my subway and bus snafu on wednesday, I decided to use another bus route this time. Well it was another hellish experience, but less frazzling this time. From the end of the green line I had to take a bus 30 minutes south of the place I was headed and then take another bus 25 minutes north almost back to where I started. I had to do this because no bus went directly from the station to the intersection I was headed. When the bus arrived at the intersection, we weren't sure which of the three bus stops was mine. They made a call in for me but to no avail. Anyway, I got off at the third bus stop and realized that I needed to have dropped off at the first one, so I began walking back there which took another 15 minutes and then from there, it was 15 minutes to the parish. I was 30 minutes late but again the worship leader and the musicians and the local volunteers had everything all ready.

The Bishop was from Ghana, Bishop Peter Turkson. He was a wonderful person: very, very, humble. Some people would come to him and kiss his ring which made him uncomfortable and he would kiss their hands back. He was very easy going which makes it easy for those of us organizing things. When he was introduced, he received a rousing response from the people present. His Catechesis was also very, very good. He spoke spontaneously and used a ton of scriptures in discussing the theme for the day, which was, "You are the light of the world." He had the young people laughing and everything. They enjoyed themselves and learned something in the process. There weren't as many questions as the day before, I think because he was not American, the young people were not sure what kind of questions to ask.

After the catechetical session there was mass, 14 priests and a Bishop. Thankfully, everything went smoothly. Bishop Turkson's homily was 28 minutes long, but then again because it was punctuated with stories, anecdotes and was a great teaching session, no one noticed. I personally enjoyed it because I grew up listening to very scriptural sermons that generally ranged between a hour to two hours in length. When I returned to the Catholic church, and since then, my tolerance for homilies has greatly decreased, and I generally cannot take more than ten minutes of a catholic homily. Here, i was spell bound for all 28 minutes so I enjoyed and I think the young people did also.

After mass, a Knights of columbus volunteer was going to take the Bishop back to his hotel and I caught a ride with them. It was great talking to him about things in general. When you get the bishops in relaxed situations you can get quite of bit of interesting information. I asked about the visa situation and how that hurt numbers from Africa. He said that they (BTW he is the president of the Ghanian Bishops' Conference) negotiated with the Canadian authorities and it was agreed that, for approval, pilgrims would have to be personally known to and vouched by a Bishop. He told stories of how many people, who weren't even catholic tried to get his approval. He noted that there is a legitimate problem as was clear at Rome WYD 2000 when many Ghanians as well as other nationals violated their visas and dissappeared, even someone in a national catholic position bailed out on them. So I guess it is that serious an issue. On a side note i hear that the Canadian authorities rejected about 25 percent of visa applications and that the average is about 20 percent. So far, they say about 10 people have filed for refugee status,though they are not releasing an information.

Thursday evening was when the pope came. I was indoors at the US Pilgrims Office and watched it on TV. It was a jungle out there but the excitement was palpable. I watched his entrance as people went wild. I then went out to the grounds when the ceremony began. It was beautiful. The Pope was in great spirits and feeling very strong. The crowds loved him and, as we all know, he loves them too. I was amazed at his stamina and how he was able to deliver so many talks in different languages.

One exciting part was when they called out the names of the different countries represented. Loud points go to the Germans, Italians and the French. But U.S. and Canada were nothing short of thunderous. It was an electrifying moment. Patriotism and culturalism runs very high at WYD. Oh I forgot,t he Mexican's were quite loud too.

One other point is that Toronto has been exceptionally hospitable. Okay, I think that was Thursday, the train ride back to my hotel wasn't too bad. I think I crashed asap because I had a Friday morning catechetical session to attend and organize and given my commuting adventures of the previoius two days, I needed to get up early again . . .5:30 am.

I should have my Friday adventures soon. I need to take a break.