ARCHDIOCESE OF BALTIMORE DELEGATION JOURNAL

At the end of Sunday, Archbishop O'Brien met with the pilgrims and discussed the implications of World Youth Day with them.

Anne Marie from Holy Trinity: This morning I woke up to a chilly sunrise at Randwick field. I fell asleep last night to the sounds of Scythian, an Irish band, playing after the vigil prayer service with the Pope. Now is the main event of World Youth Day, the papal mass. People from all over the world, nearly 500,000 strong will be in attendance as the Pope presides over this Mass.

He had many great things to say to us, but one point primarily sticks in my mind is that God made a "marriage proposal" to the human race and Mary accepted that proposal with her "yes" to accept the Holy Spirit in her world. (The Pope said this in his introduction to the Angelus at the conclusion of Mass). Mary received power when the Holy Spirit came upon her and she was a witness to the Lord. If Mary had rejected God's invitation, the world would not be as we know it today.

The message I took from this is that we all must follow Mary's example and say yes to the Lord. We will receive power to do whatever the Lord asks of us and will be stronger once we have done so.

Mollie from Holy Trinity: Today after a restless night's sleep, I awoke to the voices of pilgrims, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Pope Benedict. Together, we ate breakfast and had morning prayer at 8am. Eating breakfast and praying both sound like every day occurrences, but today, among hundreds of thousands of people, eating breakfast and praying were truly remarkable experiences. I was reminded numerous times throughout the day of our connectedness as a people on a journey of faith.

During a little bit of downtime between morning prayer and mass, I was able to spend time with some pilgrims around the worked. I traded my jacket with a man from Italy for a blue hat and I traded some pins for more pins. I talked to a lady originally from the Philippines who is currently living in Australia. She and I talked for a good fifteen minutes and after Mass, she gave me a bracelet that she had been wearing along with a big hug and some kind porting words. In that moment I felt a deep sense of unity, just as I did during the Mass.

Hundreds of thousands sang and prayed together. The readings and other parts of the mass were said in different languages and some of the songs were sung in Latin. It was during Mass that I realized more than ever how connected we, as Catholics, are because of our beliefs. Our cultures do not divide us because we have something far greater that unites us – God. I walked away from Randwick with an Italian hat, a bracelet, and a more concrete understanding of what it means to be a Catholic family.