After a quick breakfast, we started our day with Catechesis again at St. Teresa’s Church. Today’s program was formatted in a similar way to yesterday’s, but today Bishop Rolando Tirona from the Philippines did our Catechesis. He was very full of life and humor and it was such a joy to hear his stories and to learn more about discipleship, experiencing Jesus, and prayer. He gave an acronym for discipleship that spells iPod. The I stands for interiority and the need to listen to God from our interior selves, the P stands for prayer and the importance of being present to our prayer, the O stands for obedience to oblation and how through obedience to God we will learn to sacrifice for God, and finally D stands for devotion to duty and how our faith must be seen by others and other people must experience it as well. Following Mass with Bishop Tirona at the end of Catechesis, we broke up into groups to have lunch and head back to the hotel to prepare for going to the welcoming festivities for Pope Benedict. We had about an hour and a half to freshen up, meet with our prayer partners, and prepare to leave. As we got closer to the stage where the Pope would give his address after journeying through the streets, it became clear that we were not going to be able to get anywhere near the stage and that we were going to watch the address on the nearby jumbo-tron. But the good news was that we would still get to see the Pope as he rode by us in the Pope-mobile! So we staked out our spot and proceeded to wait in excitement and anticipation with all the other pilgrims for the moment that we have all been waiting for: to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father! As it got closer and closer to 7, more and more people flooded the area where we had been waiting and it was soon so crowded that we couldn’t move! The crowds were pushy, and it became difficult to hold our ground, but we persevered and continued waiting in anticipation. Finally, after about 2 and a half hours of waiting in the intense Spain sun with 2 million other people surrounding us, the moment we had so patiently endured waiting for arrived! The cheers and joyful chants as well as the helicopters overhead notified us that the Pope was coming! Finally, we saw the Holy Father for a few moments as he drove past!!! It was such a joyous moment! We then were able to listen to Pope Benedict’s address by watching the nearby jumbo-tron. He asked us to pray for each other, which was really a neat thing because we have been praying for the pope and he has been praying for us! He also encouraged us to root our faith in Jesus and strengthen it. After the welcoming liturgy, we were all filled with such a joy and energy that on our way back we were dancing and singing! After fighting some intense crowds around WYD protestors and many pilgrims, we had a chance to get a bite to eat and are now headed off to bed to get some sleep for another full day tomorrow! Buenas noches!
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| Pope Benedict!!! |
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