As the day of departure for the Great Southern Land drew near and there were many details that needed attending. Ensuring that my credit card company knows I will be out of the country and does not lock my account for suspected fraud the first time I charge something in Australia. Making sure that a family member here has a copy of my passport. Doing laundry. Making sure that my pets will be cared for in my absence. Packing.
But in the midst of these more immediate preparations, I was reminded that the preparation process for this pilgrimage has been nearly a year and a half in the making. It was that long ago that I received a phone call from the director of young adult ministries of the Holy Cross province of Passionist priests and brothers inviting me to consider applying to be a Passionist Pilgrim to World Youth Day (WYD). The invitation caught me a little by surprise.
Having moved in Church circles for many years I had certainly heard of WYD. I had grown up in a parish in California that had no formal youth ministry whatsoever. At the University of Notre Dame, where I did my undergraduate studies, I was very active in the liturgical life on campus but never really connected to the campus ministry. So, I naively assumed that World Youth Day was for youth, i.e. teenagers. My teen years are long past. So why was I being invited to be a part of WYD? It turns out, much to my surprise, that WYD is not primarily geared to people we here in the states speak about as youth. Rather, this is most a gather in young adults. I will be celebrating my 35th birthday while in Sydney, so even in this regard I just barely qualify. Still, I was somewhat comforted to know that I would not be a generation removed from the rest of the attendees.
I was also a little surprised to be invited by the Passionists. I had come to know this religious community a little while in graduate school in Chicago. They had been one of the founders of the school and some of their members were students and on the faculty (including the president). In the short time that I had been living in Houston I had gotten to know them a little better since my then girlfriend (now fiancee) was working for them at Holy Name Retreat Center. I had been to the retreat center a number of times and helped out a little here and there. Still, I felt a bit shocked. But, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, I said yes I was interested and began the application process. The deadline was only a few days away, so there were a lot of details about which I knew very little at that point.
Eventually, after I was accepted, some of those details came into sharper focus. One of the key things was that there was going to be a lot more to this preparation process than just getting materially ready for the trip. There was a great deal of spiritual preparation needed for this pilgrimage as well. The group of which I was a part numbered over 40 throughout the "western" part of the United States and began with eight of us in the greater Houston area. Eventually three would drop out and one would be added so there are six of us now. We have met at least monthly for a year and a half for study, prayer, and formation. This was an essential part of what makes this trip more a pilgrimage and less a vacation.
Pilgrims travel with a purpose. That is to say, they both know where they are going and why they are doing it. The journey itself is an essential part of the pilgrimage experience, both there and back. And the pilgrim comes back changed, or else the pilgrimage has not had its desired effect. I wonder what sort of changes are going to happen in me. I know that this process of preparation has already formed me in different ways.
Frankly the contact with other young adults have been good for me. For much of my life if I wanted to be involved in Church related activities I had to do so with people much older than myself. In so doing I forgot/failed to learn how to be young and Catholic. The kind of energy and enthusiasm, the kind of freshness and openness that I have experienced with my fellow pilgrims in the Houston area has been exciting and challenging both. I expect that I will continue to be stretched in this area. Gathering with hundreds of thousands of other young adults will be intense, and honestly a little scary for me.
On Wednesday the local Passionist community, together with the community fo Passionist partners and the board of directors of the Holy Name Retreat Center gathered to send us off with a blessing. It was a humbling experience to have so many people make a special effort to gather on a weekday evening to have dinner and pray for us. I feel a sense of responsibilty to all these people to make sure that I both remember them in my prayers on this trip and represent them well.
Right now I am sitting in the International Airport in Los Angeles, having flown in this morning from Houston, awaiting my flight to Melbourne. I am meeting the other Passionist pilgrims from around the United States, all of whom have now flown in the from every corner of the country. These are the people with whom I will be traveling, praying, eating, and being formed for the next two weeks. Right now I am struggling just to remember all of their names!
As a person who prefers quiet and focus, I know that these reflections will continue to be challenge as I know that many of them will be composed as this one is, in the midst of crowds and confusion, talking and laughter.
The pilgrimage has begun.
