Introduction
It goes without saying that Hollywood is a place someone my age can easily get lost. I went there with
a plan, but at the time that plan did not include my faith. Now that I have been renewed, I can’t leave God out. It almost hurts to do so, and in the last year and a half I have had to reevaluate all of my priorities and goals. Starting this blog was a means to help me do so. In the last school year, I’ve seen a number of people all my age who all work in the industry get burnt out, hospitalized, sent to rehab, etc. These are all good people who don’t do drugs or anything of the sort, they just got tired of the hustle and bustle—the parties, the constant working, the schedules, etc. That scared me, because if it happened to them it could happen to me.
At the beginning of the summer I became aware of my own exhaustion and need to rest. I’m so glad I was able to visit JP Catholic and attend the CNMC, because it was nice to be around people who are using media specifically for the New Evangelization. But even though it was a nice break, when I came back home the pressure and stress returned.
I sat with it for another month until WYD, hoping and praying I would get some clarity on the trip. I don’t think I went with any expectations, only hopes.
In the beginning…
During the week of WYD we stayed at St. Ignatius’ College, an all boys’ prep school in Riverview, a suburb just outside of downtown Sydney. I had looked at the school’s website before we left and so I knew that “college” in Australia is the equivalent of a high school in America, not a university. But apparently I was one of the only ones who knew this because everyone was pretty shocked when they found out we weren’t staying in dorms. St. Ignatius is also a boarding school so it had dorms, just not enough of them to house all of the pilgrims staying there. We slept in two classrooms for each sex, an interesting experience to say the least.
The first couple of days were taken up by catechesis and the youth festival events. I have to say I was a little disappointed in my catechesis sessions, not because the talks were bad, but because the Q&A sessions were borderline embarrassing. People were asking very poignant and somewhat controversial questions, but it seemed to me like the bishops were doing a lot of beating around the bush instead of just explaining what the church teaches and why. There is beauty in truth. When will we learn that?
The youth festival events were awesome. I saw Fr. Stan Fortuna, Jesse Manibusan, and Matt Maher all live. I actually saw Matt sing twice, but I cannot wait to edit the footage of the first concert because it’s pretty awesome. Myself and three of my group members muscled are way to the very front, and afterwards I finally got to meet him! I also met the bass player Kemi, who is actually quite handsome in person.
Due to the time it took to travel to all of the different events around Sydney, I didn’t go to very many speaker sessions at all. One of the talks I did attend though was exclusively for women hosted by the same young woman who co-hosted the papal arrival (I forget her name.) It was all about modesty, chastity, etc. but the speaker mixed it up a bit when she spoke about how we can use our God-given feminine qualities to help other women. Looking back on it now, that information was vital. Catholic women need to engage in the ministry of presence. We need to help other women who have been used and abused while walking down broken paths return to God. It’s very easy to separate ourselves from liberal feminism and other ideologies contrary to the faith, (and I’ve done this too) but I think now is the time where we need to stand up for ourselves, our church, and other women.
The good stuff…
I’ve already written about the papal arrival, and I don’t want to talk about it too much more because I don’t want to leak all of the info about my footage, but that was definitely a highlight of the first week. Papa Ben is so little! He’s got to be somewhere around 5 feet. I loved his speech that day, and I can’t tell you how nice it was to look around and see people from around the world all gazing up at him and listening intently. My image of him was not tainted in any way. He truly is a brilliant man.
I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that 9k pilgrimage walk. I didn’t know how long the walk was when we
started, which just may have been a good thing. Of course we all had our gigantic hiking backpacks stuffed with sleeping bags and other gear, and about 3k into the walk my sports injuries started to flair and both of my ankles started to swell. I was a little pouty for a bit until I heard my friend Jessica saying a Hail Mary. I had pulled out my rosary to pray as well, and when I turned to her I noticed she didn’t have any shoes on. I asked her why in God’s name she wasn’t wearing them, and she told me that earlier in the day she had decided to follow St. Ignatius and walk the pilgrimage barefoot.
Obviously her feet were hurting pretty badly, and so I walked with her and her sister for a few more kilometers as the three of us prayed the rosary together. (And yes I got her ordeal on film.)
After we made it to Randwick Racecourse where evening vigil was to be held, we set up camp. Once the vigil began I got a bit of Papa Ben’s speech and some B-roll and went to sleep. I was exhausted! Despite the fact that it is Australia’s winter it wasn’t too bad sleeping outside. But of course a few hours into sleeping I was loudly woken up by some very cute (but loud!) Aussie boys some of my friends and I had met the night before. After that I didn’t get too much sleep because there was a group from Poland not too far away who were burning the midnight oil and chanting anything they could think of until about 6 am the next morning.
World Youth Day…
To be honest, the actual WYD wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it would be. Karma had it’s way and we were very far back to the point where we couldn’t see the stage. After the a night of sleeping outside half of us were sick and the other half was starving for something other than the canned tuna we had been eating all week, and so after I filmed a bit we left. The only cool part was when Papa Ben drove right by us and I got to see him a few feet away again. (I still cannot get over how short he is…)
As an aside, I am incredibly excited about Spain in 2011! I hope to see you there!
The Back ‘o’ Bourke…
One piece of Australian slang I learned was the phrase “the back ‘o’ Bourke” which is the Australian equivalent of “the middle of nowhere.” As previously noted, the next part of our excursion was literally in Bourke! (At first it didn’t make sense why people in Sydney couldn’t stop laughing when we told them that’s where we had been.)
Originally, we had a jam-packed itinerary for the second week that had been organized for us by another Jesuit program. However, that particular program that shall remain nameless cancelled our plans and we were stuck trusting God to figure out where we were going to sleep and where we were going to do service. Luckily, we were put in contact with Fr. Anthony, a remarkable Indian Carmelite priest who lives in Bourke. He opened his parish home to us, and that’s where we stayed for those few days.
I call Fr. Anthony remarkable because he is the only Catholic priest in Bourke territory for miles. He is the priest for two parishes, a primary school, a high school (I think), as well as the surrounding aboriginal villages. He admitted that he sometimes gets lonely, with his only company being his parishioners and four Missionaries of Charity who were out of town at the time.
We became somewhat famous in Bourke as word travelled quickly that there was a loud bunch of
Americans in town. On the second and final day, one of the aboriginal elders named Phillip took us around on a mini-retreat to see some nature and rock art. He was an interesting man who explained to us the history of the plight of the aboriginal people, that “what we don’t see is most important.” Also on that day, I finally saw some kangaroos! (That were alive in the wild and not dead on the side of the road.)
Bourke was definitely my favorite portion of the trip because1) I was touched by the community and the kindness we were shown and 2) because Bourke was where my group finally bonded.
Many of us didn’t know one another before we arrived at the airport, and with the chaos of WYD we didn’t completely gel together. (And there’s always the little problem of different personalities.) I think the Spirit was moving the people of Bourke to teach us something about living in community.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. (And that includes me…)
If I had to pick out the most difficult time of the trip, it would probably be the two days we spent at St. Canice’s, a parish near King’s Cross that runs a homeless shelter.
Homeless ministry is in no way foreign to me, but instead of embracing the situation and trying to learn something I let myself get bored. Looking back on it, I think I was just trying to protect my heart from what had happened the night when we arrived:
We were the last of two groups to arrive at the shelter. We had been driving from Bourke all day, it was late, it was raining, we were tired, and everyone just wanted to go to bed. The other group was from France (more on those nutty Frenchmen later).
I went to the bathroom with a couple of girls, and a woman who was taking a shower was yelling and cussing at us through the door. I didn’t pay too much attention to her as I was still sick from the pilgrimage walk and it was late at night, but I heard her loud and clear when she said, “I hope you enjoy our beds tonight.” It didn’t really click just then, but the next morning I learned that the basement we were sleeping in was the actual homeless shelter. Everyone who “lived” there had to sleep outside until the service groups left.
I don’t think I can describe how I felt at the very moment I learned that I had taken someone else’s home. If there’s anything I have learned from working with the homeless it’s that trust is everything, and we had violated their trust even before we had introduced ourselves. I think I shut down emotionally that morning, and I pretty much kept to myself for the rest of the day.
What brought me out of myself was our visit to one of the local synagogues. One of the rabbis there was from SoCal and had invited us for the Friday evening Shabbat service. I’ve seen Jewish ceremonies before but I had never seen an authentic Torah, and the rabbis were nice enough to let us touch it. Again, we stuck out like sore thumbs, and the members around us helped us out with the Hebrew and the Psalms. The service was absolutely beautiful. There was a lot of singing, which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the psalms of lament.
The next morning, the parish priest Fr. Steve gathered us all into the church where he taught us about homelessness in Sydney. It was a good talk, and afterward Fr. Steve added some spice to the session when he introduced Kelly, a woman who had been living at the shelter for years.
For the next hour we listened to Kelly tell her story, how she had left home at the age of 13 to escape abuse and fell in with a crowd of drug users who became her family. We learned of how she involuntarily contracted HIV, how her son died of brain cancer, and how she was hoping God would cure her of her illness for the sake of her unborn child, who should be about 4 weeks old in the womb now.
I’ve heard plenty of stories like this. But when Kelly started to explain how she is trying to help herself and how she didn’t want charity, I sort of lost it. After the session we had some time to ourselves and I went in a corner and cried for a bit. I felt selfish and ashamed of my own inability to deal with myself and be present to others.
We had mass afterward, a fitting end to the day.
And now for a toast to the French.
That same night we all went out to a local bar to watch the rugby game of all rugby games—Australia vs. New Zealand. I had never seen rugby before, and I can’t help but feel like American men are slightly more wimpy now. No offense guys…but rugby is rough…
I went into the bar rooting for Australia (of course) but after I watched the first half and determined that the New Zealand players were significantly more attractive I secretly switched sides. (Don’t judge me…)
But anyway, what would a rugby game be without crazy beer-chugging Frenchmen who barely speak English? The photos are up on Facebook…oh a toast to the French…
The end is near…
Older readers will remember that originally my group was supposed to go to Vietnam for two weeks and then go to WYD. For monetary reasons that portion of the trip was cancelled.
But God always provides, and it seems that though we couldn’t go to Vietnam, Vietnam came to us. For the last two days we stayed at the home of a Vietnamese family who also happened to be hosting another WYD group from Vietnam.
Unfortunately, the footage from that time was damaged, which is unfortunate because our interactions with them were hilarious and faithful all at the same time.
For the next couple of days we just sight-seed. We went shopping, to the opera house, the aquarium, etc. I had kangaroo steak! But only a bite because I couldn’t get over the thought that I was eating a cute, cuddly kangaroo.
El Fin
And now for the big question: did I gain the clarity I desired?
Not really. Well, I suppose it all depends on the definition of clarity. I still don’t know what I should be doing next, but I do feel stronger to remain firm in my decision not compromise myself or my values, and I know that this trip has planted seeds in me that will continue to grow. The pressure is still there, but I think I’m finally starting to learn how to be happy with where I am, and not always obsessed with what I’m going to be working on next.
All in all, It was an amazing trip, and I have three years to work on my spanish for for España! Viva il papa!
Yes, I know that last bit was Italian.
Pax Christi, Rebecca.