I have to admit, there were moments throughout this pilgrimage when I was one step away from actually turning away from my religion, instead of being strengthened by it. There were moments when I saw World Youth Day as nothing but a reason to travel and meet people from other countries. There were times when I noticed how many locals saw the pilgrims as a nuisance, and times when I questioned foundational principles of the faith -- especially during those hours when it was hot or rainy and I was sleep deprived but still had to pay attention at Mass or catechesis, or find my way back to the hotel alone. Whatever negative impression or criticism someone can have regarding World Youth Day, it’s likely that I also had it at one moment or another during this pilgrimage.
I say this because it’s important to really emphasize the whole point of World Youth Day, for me at least. A pilgrim cannot fulfill the mission of his pilgrimage unless he pushes himself to his very limit, relinquishing his dependence on his own strength so that he practically has no choice but to have faith that God will pull him through.
The leader of our group, Father Bismarck Chau, a few other pilgrims and I reached that point of physical, mental and spiritual exhaustion Friday while waiting for the Stations of the Cross with the Pope to begin at Copacabana, which is that iconic beach in so many Rio postcards. We arrived at Copacabana at about 2 pm, then decided to get pizza for our group of 14 New Jersey pilgrims. On our way back, while carrying 10 pizzas and two bottles of soda, we had to search all along the beachside avenue for an entrance back onto the beach. We asked guards where we could get back in, and they kept telling us 'Go farther down', 'Go farther down.' No entrance was found along the whole beach, so we tried to persuade the guards to just let the four of us through, telling them that we had children on the other side who were hungry. We even convinced other people around us to support our cause and try to persuade the guards, but the guards didn’t budge. They just kept telling us to go further down the beach to find an entrance.
So we walked and walked farther and farther from our group on the other side as we looked for this fabled crossing. We walked to the end of Copacabana, to the point where we could go no further, then finally we were told we simply have to wait for the Pope to pass before we could cross. Why didn't they just tell us that in the first place, before we walked almost three miles with 10 pizzas?
So we waited, and when they finally allowed us to cross we had to walk practically the whole length of Copacabana, 4 kilometers… again, in the sand, to get back to our group. Four hours and about five miles later, we finally got the lunch, or I should say dinner, to our patient but hungry group, who greeted us with cheers.
This may just sound like a frustrating ordeal that every pilgrim is bound to deal with if they dare to go to World Youth Day, but for me it was another test of faith. Earlier that day we attended a very enriching catechesis at Vivo Rio with Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston. He reminded us how our Western Civilization often takes Christianity for granted, not seeing how powerful and wonderful the Gospel truly is. He told a story of a few Franciscan missionaries who were sent to Papua New Guinea to evangelize the natives there. These natives lived in a very isolated part of the country and never heard the Gospel. They still performed revenge killings because they had no concept of natural death and believed whenever someone died there was someone to blame.
But when the missionaries came the natives were swept away by the news of Jesus, and were deeply grateful toward the Franciscans for giving them the hope of the Gospel. The area now has 160,000 Catholics, and they wrap their Bibles in cloth as they do for all things that are precious to them.
Bishop O’Malley then explained how the Good News often has the opposite effect in Western culture. The mere mention of Jesus sometimes drives people away, as if they have been “vaccinated against the Gospel,” because they feel like they’ve heard everything there is to know about Christianity.
The bishop made it clear that we are in a cultural battle in America. Youth and young adults are encouraged by peers to cohabitate and have premarital sex, even though studies have shown that these “trial marriages” have twice the divorce rate, the bishop said. He told the young people to pray to the Holy Spirit about their vocation, and if they’re called to marriage, pray to "find the right person and to be the right person."
“Marry someone who has the same faith and sense of mission,” he said. “Get married to have children and you will be a blessing to your family, the Church and society.”
As we were walking back to our group at Copacabana with the pizza, my physical fatigue actually reminded me of this sense of mission. Even in the small things, like going to get food for a group of people, faith can be renewed. No act of love is too small, and it is in fact those small acts of love that collectively form the Body of Christ. These truths were hidden from me at those times when I lacked faith on this pilgrimage, but now it's clear that Christ had to put me through my own Stations of the Cross before I could fully appreciate praying them with the Pope.
In my moments of doubt on this pilgrimage, I could not escape the logic of God’s kingdom. We’re each called to some task. Taken by itself it may seem insignificant, but when it’s done with faith and obedience to God’s will it can be powerful. How powerful? How strong? Well, three million pilgrims from all around the world strong. For one like me with such little faith, it took that kind of testimony for me to finally get it. I could go about questioning the principles of Catholicism and try to find God on my own, but if I did that I would have to ignore the power of the Church’s communion. The witness of three million joyful young Catholics from 160 different countries, singing and dancing in the streets of Rio, would always be present in my mind. Now that I’ve been to World Youth Day, I can honestly conclude that there is no greater faith, no greater way of life, no greater fulfillment or joy than those which come with being Catholic.
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