Catholics embark on a ‘pilgrimage’
Three years ago as he sat on a stage in Toronto listening to Pope John Paul II, Sean Harrell gazed at the crowd of several hundred thousand people and found his conviction.
Now 20 years old, Harrell says the experience helped him decide to pursue the priesthood.
“I think it was the beginning of my discernment process,” said Harrell, a seminarian at Gonzaga University. “It helped me think about what I’m supposed to do with my life.”
This week, Harrell will join 20 other Catholic students and young adults from the Spokane area on a trip to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany. The 20th-anniversary celebration will culminate in a visit by Pope Benedict XVI that is expected to draw 800,000 listeners.
“It’s a pilgrimage,” said Eric Thomason, youth minister at St. Mary’s Church in Spokane Valley. “We are going to encounter God and to encounter the global Catholic community. For kids from Spokane, that’s usually an incredible experience.”
Thomason, who has attended World Youth Days in Denver, Toronto and Rome, vividly remembers the opening ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, where he listened to Pope John Paul II, whose words have stayed with him.
“He said as young Catholics, do not settle for mediocrity,” Thomason said. “He said that really forcefully. Do not settle for mediocrity in your life. The world needs people who are going to change it.”
To pay for the cost of the trip to Germany, the group held garage sales and bake sales and distributed 5,000 fliers for a private company to local doorsteps. The group, whose members plan to sleep on the floor in schools and churches, must pay 170 euros, or about $210, for a week’s lodging, transportation and meals.
The students and young adults also contributed 10 euros per person to help defray the costs for people from poorer countries.
Julie Manchester, 16, says the fund-raising work – as well as the Spartan accommodations – will help prepare her spiritually.
“You have to make some sacrifices,” Manchester said. “It’s about spiritual growth and stripping you of all your comforts.”
In 1993, Kiana Anderson, a Spokane sales associate, joined thousands of people in a field outside Denver, where she slept in the dirt. She plans to participate this year in the “pilgrimage” to see the new pope.
Harrell and Thomason traveled for three days on a bus to attend the festival in Toronto. Along the way, the group sang songs and joined one another in prayer.
“It just created this very joyful atmosphere, this very spiritual atmosphere,” Thomason said.
The group created its own T-shirts for the trip to Cologne, which read, “I Love My German Shepherd.” Pope Benedict was born in Marktl am Inn and lived in the Bavarian region of Germany until the 1980s.
The World Youth Day celebration has spurred the region to prepare for the visitors, who are expected to arrive from 160 countries.
Catholic News Service reported that German railways are adding more than 140 trains, and construction workers have built 30 miles of new roads in the area.
According to the news service, cell-phone companies have built a new network of transmitters to deal with the visitors and will offer “sacred” ring tones, including church bells and the tune, “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”