A walking pilgrimage

As I believe I said before, an important part of the pilgrimage experience is the actual physical journey involved in getting there. Traditionally and historically this has involved walking. While, for obvious reasons, most WYD pilgrims cannot walk to the host city, a pilgrimage walk is still inclulded as a part of the experience. It also serves the practical purpose of gathering several hundred thousand people into one place. So, Saturday was dedicated to walking to Randwick Racecourse, the site of the overnight vigil and papal mass on Sunday. There were several official routes set up leading to the area, and streets were closed to accommodate the pilgrims. Our United States group split up into four, each taking slightly different routes. One group left very early, took the train into the downtown area and had a short walk. They had the goal of securing a spot for our group within the area reserved for us. One group walked directly from the school, eschewing all public transportation. Another group wanted a long walk and took the train to the end of one of the routes and walked a full 26km. I was in a group that took the train up to North Sydney. Our walk took us across the famous Harbor Bridge and into the central business district.

The crowds were not bad. There were plenty of people to be sure, but because of the multiple routes and people beginning at different times of the day we never experienced the human gridlock that had been a part of the walk on Tuesday. Not only was the walk pleasant and view tremendous, I was surpised at how much the experience touched me on a spiritual level. There were a few places set up along the way as prayer stations, and we also prayed other prayers as we went. I felt very connected with the tradition of pilgrimage and found it a very helpful preparation for the upcoming celebrations.

Once we arrived in the area people entered by various gates depening on what had been alloted them on their admission ticket. We had gate 14, section A, area 4. We had to walk down the full length of the racecourse on the east side to find gate 14 was the final gate. Once we entered we followed the signs and got slightly confused. It seemed that we were being directed toward what was labeled VIP entrance. The very helpful volunteers looked at our tickets and told us that we were headed correctly! A little further on and we discovered that we were about to enter a restricted area and had to go through a special security screening not unlike that at an airport (x-ray bags, walk through a metal detector). By this point I was beginning to get excited. This could only mean that we were going to be pretty close to the Pope himself! After than it was still a long walk until finally we found our area. The early group had done well. Within A4 they had the corner nearest the altar area. And A4 was literally the best section in the entire area! From the numbers, I would never have guessed. Just to our right, directly in front of the altar, were the chairs that were set up for the concelebrating priests. From where we were it was about 50 yards on a straight line up and to the right to the main altar. I could not believe how fortunate we were. It certainly more than made up for the poor seats for the Opening Mass!