World Youth Day Diary Day 4 - Wednesday August 17th
Sep 1 2005
By Stephen McKenna
An early morning start greeted us all this morning as we dragged our weary bones down to breakfast for a spot of cereal, croissants and some fresh orange juice.
After a slight delay rounding everyone up and almost having to knock doors down to wake people, we were all together and ready to jump in the bus to go to the Bayern Munich football stadium for our first dose of Catechesis.
Catechesis is a form of religious instruction that was all new to us. The speaker on Wednesday was the Archbishop of Washington - Cardinal McGarrick. He was an excellent speaker and his theme for the day was all about us pilgrims and how we were making a journey of faith in this WYD week. He was very laid back and had a laugh with the stadium audience; telling everyone that he was going to speak for a long time and he hoped everyone wouldn't fall asleep.
To make things easy for us, the stadium that we were in was for English speaking WYD pilgrims so we were there with people from England, Ireland, Wales, America, Canada, and Australia.
Cardinal McGarrick was really interesting to listen to and as the sun shone down on our pale Scottish skin, we were all enthralled by his motivational speech about vocations to the priesthood and how we were all here for the same reason. After speaking to several members of our group in the days after his speech it became clear that we all felt that his words were aimed directly at us as individuals.
Standing in the queue for McDonalds at the stadium, I got talking to a group of Canadians from Halifax who were winding me up about the kilt I was wearing. After educating them that it was not a skirt and it was traditional Scottish dress, they gave me one of their black floppy fishermen's hats with the Canadian flag and 'Archdiocese of Halifax' written on the front. I was really chuffed and wore it with pride for the rest of the week!
I cannot talk about Wednesday without mentioning the music. Joining Cardinal McGarrick on stage was a Christian band consisting of acoustic guitars, strings and vocals. They were tremendous! I must admit that I am not a big fan of all that happy-clappy bible music but they brought a fresh approach to hymns and taught the crowd several new songs; encouraging everyone to sing along to the choruses that were all very simple and had a universal appeal. The best hymn that we learned on Wednesday was Jesus Christ You Are My Life with its catchy chorus and beautiful melody it was easily my favourite hymn of the whole week.
The most awe-inspiring thing I witnessed on Wednesday was the guitarist Tony Melendez who manages to play the most amazing music with his feet! He was born without arms and his family and his faith spurred him on to not let his disability hold him back. After playing in front of Pope John Paul II in 1987, Tony was enthused as the Pope climbed over a security barrier to greet him and thank him for being such an inspiration to young people.
There were a number of priests who gathered at the opposite end of the stadium and spread throughout the stadium, giving communion to the thousands of pilgrims who were seated for the mass.
As a group leader, I made my way with eleven members of our group to the catering point round the corner from the stadium and got hot lunches and dinner for everyone.
After lunch we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the Scottish groups for a ceilidh to pay respects to Blessed John Duns Scotus who was a theologian from the 13th century who lived in the Scottish village of Duns and is buried in Cologne. But this was cancelled as many of the groups could not travel due to heavy traffic so we were left to go out in Cologne on Wednesday night.
