The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

Preparation for World Youth Day

Authored by Jeanne Schreck in Issue #29.2 of The Sower
‘Did you get to meet the Pope’, is the question I am most often asked after people discover that I spent eight months as a long term volunteer for World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany. Most people expect my most memorable moment during this time to be standing at the altar during the final Mass with Pope Benedict. Or, perhaps spending the night with close friends on the field after the Saturday night Vigil; maybe even the hours of work spent at a computer screen answering emails and phone calls in a madcap attempt for organization before the great days arrived. Instead, I find myself going back to a tiny chapel in the basement of St. Andreas Church, which just happened to be the crypt of St. Albert the Great. Every weekday morning in this quiet, peaceful place, one could find a small group of worshipers from all around the world, taking the time to prepare themselves for their often strenuous day in the World Youth Day office, and uniting themselves in prayer with the hundreds of thousands of young people and their catechists who would be joining them together with the Vicar of Christ, for a few short days in August. World Youth Day is without a doubt a powerful and grace-filled experience. Even those who attend simply because they are curious and live nearby will be blessed by the outpouring of grace and the pure joy surrounding the occasion. But for those who are pilgrims instead of spectators, privileged believers, who have carefully prepared themselves for this great experience, World Youth Day offers a life altering call to enter into the mission of our beloved Catholic Church.

The rest of this online article is available for current subscribers.

Start your subscription today!


This article is from The Sower and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of Maryvale Institute. Contact [email protected]

Articles from the Most Recent Issue

Youth & Young Adult Ministry: The Power of Gen Z – How Parishes Can Activate the Prophetic Voice of Youth
By Joel Stepanek
“When you love something so much, you talk about it. You can’t contain it. If you find something that you think is the greatest thing in the world, what teenager is quiet? There are none.” When I encountered that quote, my outlook on youth ministry changed. It was the day I realized that something was missing in our parishes. It was why, despite... Read more
Encountering God in Catechesis
By Catechists' Personal Testimonies
Testimony 1: Lessons from Hallmark I taught religion to the whole middle school, from sixth to eighth grades. I was also the homeroom teacher to the sixth-grade boys for most of the years I taught there. I was always on the lookout for anything I could use for my boys or for teaching in general. One evening at the convent, we watched a Hallmark... Read more
AD: Books by Pope Benedict XVI
By Colleen Rainone
Free This is a paid advertisement in the April 2023 issue. To find out more about these books, go to https://ignatius.com or call 800-631-1531.... Read more

Pages

Watch Tutorial Videos

We've put together several quick and easy tutorial videos to show you how to use this website.

Watch Now