WITNESSES OF FAITH: Pilgrims bring WYD-inspired faith to New Zealanders

By KARA KOCZUR, Globe staff reporter
(Email Kara)

The closing Mass at World Youth Day on July 20 did not mark the end of the pilgrimage for the Sioux City attendees. They still had another leg of their journey to complete.

Taking to heart WYD's theme, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8), the Sioux City pilgrims, embarked to New Zealand for five days to witness their faith to the people of St. Thomas More Parish in the town of Mount Maunganui.

After going deeper in her faith at WYD, New Zealand gave Allison Youngers of St. Patrick Parish in Sheldon, the opportunity to live it out.

"In New Zealand we really had a chance to go out and put that to work by visiting the elderly and being with the school kids, really taking what we learned from the pilgrimage part in Australia and applying it to our lives in New Zealand because we got to go out and use our enhanced faith and do all that stuff," said Youngers, 20.

Their group, which consisted of 150 pilgrims who organized their pilgrimage through the Franciscan University of Steubenville Journeys office, was able to do mission work for the people. One day half the group went to visit school kids at the grade school and those at the "college," which is what is considered high school in the United States.

"We really met the people and talked to them about our experiences at WYD," said Mark Thomason, diocesan director of catechesis, evangelization and RCIA, adding that the students got to see that it's okay and even cool to be Catholic.

The other half of the group went to a nursing home with the locals to help distribute the Eucharist to the elderly, as well as get to meet and talk with them.

On the last day the pilgrims led an evening prayer service at the parish with praise and worship music and adoration. New Zealand doesn't really have youth ministry, Thomason said, and so the evening was to help the priest at St. Thomas More kick-start his youth ministry program.

"It was awesome because we shared our faith with these people who are also Catholic, but maybe opened them up to more than they're used to," said Thomason, adding that the pilgrims had been practicing the songs throughout the pilgrimage.

Youngers hopes that the New Zealanders seeing 150 youth excited about their faith makes them think it's worth it too.

"They saw us having fun and enjoying ourselves and praising God and singing songs and doing all that," she said. "I hope that that kind of ignites their fire for God and that they want to do that too."

The pilgrims also did some sightseeing, including visiting a Maori tribe and spending the night at a marai, which is the tribe's meeting house. The tribe taught the men the haka war dance and cooked authentic food for everyone.

"They heat up these hot stones and then they put foil over the top of it," said Brittany Poss, 18, of St. Michael's in South Sioux City. "Then they cook their meat and stuff in the ground and their potatoes, so it had a real smoky taste. It was really cool."

In New Zealand the pilgrims stayed with host families, which Youngers said helped her get to know the people better.

"It was really nice to be able to sit down and talk with someone who really lives there all the time and you really got to know more about their culture and all of that," she said.

Poss described her host family as the most hospitable people she's ever met.

"You know when people say, 'Make yourself at home?' Honestly, I felt like I could go right over to their fridge and open it up and see what there was [to eat]," she said.

Father Brad Pelzel also said the people were very friendly, both in New Zealand and in Australia. He was stopped several times on the streets of Sydney, he said, by people who asked him questions and talked about the amazement of WYD.

"They were just blown away by a quarter of a million young people," he said. "There was this incredible peace and calm and happiness that descended over the city. It was absolutely inspiring."

As the diocesan vocation director, Father Pelzel spent three hours one day volunteering at the U.S. Bishop's vocation booth, where he talked to young people venturing through. He also heard numerous confessions throughout WYD, in fact an estimated "better than ten hours" of them. One afternoon, he said, he heard four straight hours of confessions. It was something he described as both overwhelming and humbling.

"You see the sincerity, you see the people struggling with their faith, with the decisions they've made in their lives, the events that have happened to them, welcomed or unwelcomed," he said, "and how they try to integrate that with Jesus' call to follow him."

Father Pelzel also concelebrated the opening Mass with Cardinal George Pell, as well as the closing Mass with Pope Benedict XVI.

Prior to the closing Mass was the vigil, which included songs, evening prayer, adoration and candles. Seeing hundreds of thousands of young people drop to their knees in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament was overpowering, Poss said.

"It was just a feeling that came over you that absolutely cannot be described," she said. "I felt like I just had an army of Catholics around me and we were in it together, we were soldiers for Christ."

The message from WYD that stuck out the most, Youngers said, was to use the gift of courage from the Holy Spirit in everyday life.

"That's the most important that you carry with you, is courage to spread God's word and do everything in the name of God," she said.

WYD also gave her the ability to witness the universality of the Catholic Church.

"When you're just in the United States, you don't realize how global the Catholic faith really is," Youngers said. "It's just really cool to see how it really is a universal faith."

The next WYD is set for 2011 in Madrid, Spain, and Thomason's advice is to start saving.

"If you need something to . . .rejuvenate your own faith or just reclaim hope again, WYD is for you," he said. "It's not just for the ultra-pious people. It's for everyone. When you see 300,000 people who all love the Lord and love being Catholic, it's not a mistake. It's a once in a lifetime experience, and why not?"

For Poss, WYD showed her that through Christ, she can become the person she wants to be.

"What struck me the most was how much more I could change, how much more I could grow in my faith," she said. "You never can stop growing, you can never love the Lord too much."

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