Berkley — More than 100 teenagers and young adults from throughout Southeast Michigan walked a five-mile round trip between Our Lady of La Salette here and St. Mary Church in Royal Oak on Aug. 1.
But for this journey, the most important steps that they took were spiritual ones.
“It gets a ton of people together, and it keeps everyone focused,” says Kristen Clawson, an 18-year-old parishioner of St. Mary Church in Wayne, during the walk. “It’s just kind of cool. I’ve never done it before… It’s a bonding experience.”
Indeed, bonding was key for the event. The young people — who carried a cross, prayed and sang hymns as they walked through the streets of Berkley and Royal Oak — were on one of several events scheduled throughout the year to prepare them for the international World Youth Day celebration, which will occur Madrid, Spain, in August of 2011.
World Youth Days have been dynamic celebrations which have been part of the Church since 1985, and have been known to draw together millions of young Catholics from around the globe. International gatherings are held every two or three years, and the Archdiocese of Detroit organizes a trip with hundreds of pilgrims for each one.
For next year, about 200 teenagers are signed up to join the pilgrimage with the archdiocese. Many others will attend a “World Youth Day at Home” event in Detroit.
But as the young people were reminded on Aug. 1, the pilgrimage doesn’t start when the plane touches down in Madrid. For them, it’s already begun.
Journeying together
In his talk before the walking pilgrimage, Benedictine Monk Fr. Dan Homan urged the pilgrims to be aware of the value they and others have as persons made in the image and likeness of God. He used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate his point.
“If you’re aware of who you are and who other people are, you will never walk past someone like the people did in that parable,” he said. “If you start to see with God’s eyes, you will begin to see spiritual teachers everywhere.”
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As young people making the World Youth Day pilgrimage for the first time will see crowds larger than they ever have before — and grow closer to their pilgrimage group than many might guess, as well — he and the other youth ministers at the walk stressed the simple Christian message of charity towards neighbor.
“It’s about a spiritual journey that we’re going to go on together,” said Laura Piccone-Hanchon, a youth minister for the archdiocese who organized the walking pilgrimage. “It’s about how you are going to function in a group of people and be there for one another in these faith-filled events.”
The participants — who were from 10 area youth groups and a couple of young adult groups — were given activities before and during the walk to mingle and meet one another. On the walk, they were encouraged to spend time with their new friends from outside their own group.
“It’s good to get to know the people you’re going with,” said Christel Ciolion, a 16-year-old from Our Lady of the Woods in Woodhaven. “You also need to know the reason why you’re going — to grow closer to God instead of just doing it to do it and going through the motions.”
Prep is vital
Many of the teenagers and young adults on the walk echoed Ciolion’s sentiment. According to the young people, a pilgrimage isn’t a journey to be taken lightly.
“It’s not something where you just go and do it,” said Patrick Reiter, 16, from St. James in Ferndale. “You have to bring yourself up to it. Of course you’re going to have a good time — but it’s more about God, and you don’t want to go and just blow everything off.”
The walkers look forward to a week filled with the type of camaraderie they experienced, but in the streets of a foreign country and on a much grander scale.
Among the most popular images at World Youth Day is the customary crowd of millions — stretching nearly as far as the eye can see — gathered for Mass with the pope. Also a sight familiar is a sea of young people from all different countries walking together toward the site of the Mass or other events and prayer services that take place in the week leading up to World Youth Day.
Mai MacDonald, a 15-year-old from St. Mary Parish in Wayne, said he’s glad that a walking pilgrimage a year out gives him at least a small taste of what that’s going to be like.
“You get to learn about other people (at World Youth Day),” he said. “We’re going to be meeting people outside of our nationality — so it’s good to learn about people outside our parish.”
Gem Manalo, a 20-year-old student at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, agrees that it’s important to bond with her fellow pilgrims. In her case, she wants the World Youth Day to be more than just a foreign trip with friends.
“For this trip, it’s deeper,” she said. “I’m obviously going to enjoy it, but it’s about self growth for me. I want to learn more about myself and my relationship with God and grow in that sense — because I haven’t gotten an opportunity to do that.”
Rich history
If she succeeds, Manalo will be among countless who have deepened their relationships with Christ through World Youth Day. Since John Paul II began the tradition, tens of millions of pilgrims have come to know each other through having shared the experience.
Nearly every teenager knows someone who’s gone. And for some, like Nick Glennon of St. Colette Parish, Livonia, the tradition runs in the family.
“My grandmother has gone to every World Youth Day since Denver (in 1993), and all of my father’s siblings have gone, so it’s kind of a family tradition,” said Glennon, 17, who’s looking forward to making his first World Youth Day pilgrimage. “It always seems to have had a positive affect on them.”
This summer, Pope Benedict XVI — who in his papacy has been part of the last two international gatherings in Germany and Australia — said that the event will give young people a chance to strengthen their lives in Christ’s love.
Speaking to Madrid Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, he said World Youth Day “is not just a mass gathering, but a privileged occasion for the young of (Spain) and of the entire world to allow themselves to be conquered by the love of Christ Jesus, the Son of God and of Mary, the faithful friend, the victor over sin and death.”
Piccone-Hanchon knows well what it looks like when teenagers allow Christ into their lives in a more profound way through World Youth Day. In her days as youth minister at St. Colette Parish, she’d experienced it before.
“When these young people come back, they are so on fire about their faith life that they can’t help but to spread the good news about World Youth Day to all the people they come in contact with — whether it be families, parishes, schools,” she said. “You just can’t help but to come back and be on fire.”
