Here there and everywhere

Friday morning, after gathering for short morning prayer, we went to our small groups for discussion of the previous day's input. We did not have long, and the group again struggled to enter into the process. Still, there were a few people, reflecting on the idea of JPIC who spoke of some concrete ways in which they and their schools were involved in social outreach. Most of the people, however, found it difficult to imagine how they could be positive agents for systemic change. Many young people do not feel as though they have much power to do things on such a scale. I reminded them that the internet, with which young people are so comfortable, gives them much more power that previous generations. We do not need to depend on newspapers and television to get out the word about anything.

After our small groups we regathered in the Church for a presentation of the Stations of the Cross. Various pilgrims had been asked to help "act out" the stations. We had originally been scheduled to do this outside, climbing the hill nearby, but the rainy weather prevented it. They did a good job. This very traditional devotion served to help put the idea of the Passion of Jesus in very concrete terms.

This was followed up by some reflections by a Passionist priest from Naples, Italy. His reflections centered on the idea of garbage. He said that our modern consumerist culture creates mountains of trash. But some of it was it creates is human refuse. By that he meant that our society treats some people as if they were garbage and attempts to throw them away. He identified these as those whom Jesus called the least and said that they are those with whom we need to most be in touch if we are to keep alive the Passion of Jesus. He made an interesting connection to the parable of the workers in the vineyard. He said that those who were not hired until late in the day were the people whom that society had treated as human garbage. The point of the parable, he said, is that because they received a full day's wage for only an hour of work, the owner of the vineyard was making the point that no one is excluded and no one is garbage.

We were given some silent time in the church to reflect and journal on the experience before lunch. One of the questions we were given was to reflect on how, in the words of St. Paul of the Cross, the passion of Jesus is "the most overwhelming sign of God's love."

After lunch we boarded buses for a trip to downtown Melbourne. In the evening there was a mass of commissioning for all the WYD pilgrims who had gathered in the Melbourne area as part of their prepration and journey toward Sydney. It was held in the Telstra Dome, one of the major football stadiums in Melbourne. The mass was presided over by the Archbishop of Melbourne.

We arrived near the stadium at about 2:30. The doors did not open until 4:30 and the mass was not scheduled to begin until 6:30, so we had some time to see the city. Just after the buses pulled away, however, one of our group discovered that she had left her purse on the bus. In it was her passport, her money, and her ticket to the mass. That person was the sister of my fiancee, so the three of us spent some time trying to get it back! Luckily, Cristina had decided to buy a cheap pre-paid cell phone here in Australia for emergencies. We were able to contact a group leader, who was able to contact the bus company, who was able to contact the driver. After about an hour and a half she had her purse back.

We took the remaining time to walk through the downtown area and visit the Melbourne aquarium. The highight of that for me was undoubtedly the display of jellyfish. That sounds a little mundane, but the fact of the matter is that one of the things that impressed me about Melbourne is how familiar and normal it felt. We speak often of the differences between peoples and cultures, and these are real, but perhaps we do not often speak of the similarities. It is good to remember that there is something we share that is so very human.

Returning to the stadium I was somewhat unsure of what the experience of mass would be like. I had never participated in a mass of this size. They told us the stadium seats somewhere around 50,000 people. Looking around I would estimate that there were about 35,000 people there. The largest assembly I had previously been a part of would have been the baccalaureate mass when I graduated from Notre Dame. I would guess that that was about 5000 or 6000 people. I wondered if, sitting in stadium seats in the upper deck behind the altar, watching what was taking place on large TV screens, I would actually feel like I was a fully, consciously, and actively participating in a liturgy or if I would feel like a spectator. I was plesantly surprised that once mass began it did feel like this entire stadium was engaged in this. It reassures me that the papal mass in Sydney, which will have 10 or 20 times as many people, will also be a true religious experience.

It was late in the evening by the time we were back to Endeavour Hills and our host families.