WYDToronto

World Youth Day 2002
Toronto, Canada

July 22-28 I led my first pilgrimage and took the 16 people in the above shot to go and pray with the Pope and approximately 1/2 a million young people from around the world. This page is all about our trip.

So we left for our pilgrimage around 5AM from Adrian, and car pooled to Saline. There we met up with a couple other churches and took a bus to our accommodations in Toronto. We stayed at Dublin Heights Elementary and Middle School on the outskirts of the city. I told my youth not to expect anything elaborate, but we had no idea what we were getting into. There were 8 showers for the 300+ pilgrims staying at the school. And I heard the sleeping accommodations were going to be tight but when we each got assigned to a locker I knew it was going to be one rough week.

I was able to pull a few strings and got us some nice spots on a cold hard classroom floor. (Just kidding... the heat was sweltering and we would have welcomed a cold floor. Luckily it was still plenty hard.) This is a shot of our pastor, Fr. Tom at the start of day two. He apparently just found out that World Youth Day lasted an entire week and we would have to be staying in the school for longer than just a "Day." I tried to cheer him up by telling him that the last night we wouldn't have to sleep on the floor because we would be outside in the fresh air with fellow pilgrims from around the world on comfy grass. I really had no idea it was going to rain... and say what you will about mud... so long as you keep your head above it, it is quite comfortable.

Each day would begin the same way... a blueberry muffin, cereal bar and apple juice for breakfast and then we would board public transportation for the hour or so commute to our meeting spot, Exhibition Place. This is a shot of one of my chaperones, Steve, on the bus. If you can't make it out, that sign under him it reads "Please put litter into this bag. Thank you." Now the last thing I want to do is imply Steve is litter, But he is the one whose wearing the trash bag. So I guess, uhh... make of that what you will.

After the bus, subway, train and/or trolley we still had a bit of walking 'til we got to our morning activity. Most days we had some sort of Catechesis (which we usually arrived late to) followed by mass with about 5000 other pilgrims. The day this shot was taken we were all entered into a beauty pageant. Steve (trash bag guy) actually won. No accounting for Canadian taste.

There were many fun and exciting things to see while we were making our trek towards Exhibition Place. These were some 4 storey displays they had up. I don't really have all that much to say about them, I just thought this was a cool shot and was relieved none of my youth tried to climb them all week.

And this was a very impressive baptismal font they had put up for the occasion. I mean, say what you will about Canadians, but this just goes to show how "all out" they went for us. I was so inspired by it that I wanted to get rebaptised. I mean, sure that's a heresy and a theological impossibility, but since when do I let that stop me? But I opted otherwise and settled for remembering my baptism through full immersion in the font.

After our morning session we had lunch, which was an adventure in itself. The food service was amazing. They served about 100 000 people two meals over the course of about 8 hours every day for the entire week. If you thought the loaves and fishes were a good trick... you should have seen this. Now it was world cuisine which did not always go over to well with my youth, but I was very impressed with the quality. We had a small break after lunch with enough time for a quick power nap, and then off we were again.

And powered up we became. Here's two of my youth, Ed and Sam, showing off just how powered up they were. And notice those leaf tattoos on them... we're talking Canadian power here. In fact, they felt so powered up that they tried to show many other pilgrims just how powered up they were. (Oddly enough, mostly female pilgrims.) And if funny looks in Canada mean what impressed looks mean in the U.S., then they impressed a whole lot of women.

One afternoon we welcomed the pope to town. I took a group to camp out by the popemobile route 5 hours early so we could be pretty close. And as you can tell by the picture we were quite successful. We got within about 10 feet of the pope, and I didn't even have to do anything illegal to get us there. This shot was taken by a Canadian girl on top of one of my youth's shoulders. I had a Canadian girl on my shoulders whom I'm guessing also got some great shots of the pope. Just none were with my camera. She did take a nice shot of the back of the security vehicle behind the popemoble for me though. Thanks Melissa... still waiting on those pictures you said you'd e-mail me ;)

During the evenings I gave my youth free time to check out the sights. There were concerts going on given by "local talent," many different displays to see, or they could just go around talking to pilgrims from all over the planet. One night while I was out exploring with Adam and Ricardo, we ran into Steven Page, the lead singer from BareNaked Ladies. I was able to talk him into posing for that picture before he had to get to his show. Not as exciting as the pope, but up there.

After the evening festivities, we boarded our various forms of public transportation to return back to the school to settle in for the night before starting over again the next day. Here is a cute shot of Adam covering Ashley and Sara's ears so they would not have to listen to all the Italians singing on the subway. Not that the Italians weren't lovely singers. I mean I love Italian singing. Especially when it's very late at night and you're dead tired and the only thing you want to do is go to sleep. I know that's when I most enjoy listening to people sing loud songs in a language I don't understand.

I encouraged my kids to keep a journal about their experiences at World Youth Day. And then to my amazement, a lot of them listened to me. Pretty crazy. Here's a shot of Ed working hard on his journal. He is obviously reflecting very deeply of the events of the day and is straining to find the words to express the intense and powerful emotions he came into contact with.

Be sure not to miss page 2!!!

You are
the salt
of the
earth!

You are
the light
of the
world!