All Night Vigil & Closing Mass

Welcome back to our adventures down under! It is now 8pm in Sydney on Sunday, and so much has happened. We left Saturday morning early so the teens could get to Paddy's market for souvenirs. The Encore Rep told us it was a five minute walk from the bus stop. Apparently 5 minutes in Australia is 40 minutes back home. hehe (I wouldn't know because Erich, Mary Jo, Christine, and Andrew took them while Pam and I stayed back to do laundry. For just the essentials for 19 of us, it was over $40. Yikes!) The teens loved the market and since they only had 15 minutes to shop, we told them we would come back.



When we returned to the hotel from doing laundry, I finally got to talk to my family! Hooray! (Happy Birthday to both Aunt Sue's!) I miss you all lots and lots! Everyone sounds like they are doing fine without us, but that is a good thing. (I guess. jk) After the phone call, Pam and I walked the beach eating gelato. (Not a bad life if you can get it.) Once the group returned from Paddy's we left for our 10 kilometer pilgrim walk. Our liturgy guide had prayers for multiple stops throughout the city along with stops at "power stations." Each one of us, if we wanted to, took a turn leading prayer at the stops. We started our beginning prayer at the bus stop outside of our hotel. It was a neat experience praying with each other throughout the day. I think my very favorite stop was in the middle of the bridge. The locals told us that they have never closed the bridge for anything, and a lot of Sydneysiders who live in the high rises around the bridge were on their balconies yelling and cheering. (KJ~It reminded me a lot of the Flying Pig Race, except that I didn't have to run. hehe) We stopped directly under the Sydney Flag in the middle of the bridge to say our second prayer stop prayer. It was amazing to see the throngs of people praying and praising God with no fear of how they looked or what other people would think. It was truly inspiring.

This isn't to say that there weren't protesters and evangelizers from other religions around. The Catholics around us just dealt with it peacefully and non-confrontationally! Let me give you an example: At one of the corners there was a man passing out "Aids Awareness" ribbons wrapped around condoms. About 10 feet away you started to see them on the ground and around rubbish cans. One of our boys saw a girl from another country picking them up off the ground and asked her what she was doing. She replied without hesitation that she was picking them up to throw them away at the end of the route because "true love is worth more than 25 cents." It stopped our guys for a minute, and then they started to pick them up to throw them away also.

The last part of our walk was straight up a big hill. By this time, our backs and feet were hurting and we just wanted to get there. We even missed the power station stops at the end because they were on flags way up in the air, and all of the other signs were on big yellow placards. We didn't skip our prayers though. We found a really cool gum tree to rest under and say our ending (and power station) prayers.

The line to get into Randwick Racetrack was the most organized of the week. We picked up our last three 'green bag' meals and went to find our spot. We were assigned a section in J, but when we got there, it was full. The volunteer told us to find a spot in the public section of K and to move back for mass in the morning. At this point, we didn't care. We just wanted to drop our gear and rest. We ended up in K3, right in the front, by the circle track. (Randwick is a horse race venue.) All 19 of us were together, and that was all I cared about. We spent some time blowing up our rafts (I blew up four of them for others, but we all know that I have more hot air than most. hehe) and then we got settled in for the vigil with the Pope. There were concerts leading up to the vigil, and some of our girls got up to dance.

During the prayer walk, we stopped at Darling Harbour for lunch. (It was nice to eat by our favorite fountain, and the Aussies are very affectionate.) By now we were set up at Randwick, and hungry. We opened our packs to find. . .say it with me. . .tuna or salmon! A lot of us just skipped the meal.

The vigil started and the music and prayers were very moving. This was a very good thing because it was the coldest I have ever been. Most of us had on multiple shirts, sweatshirts, pants, and socks; and we still froze! The teens were told that they could go explore as long as they stayed in groups of three and checked in every hour. They had all night adoration in four different tents, prayer stops, and snack/hot chocolate booths. There was a lot to see. The songs and group chants went on all night.

At 2am I had pretty much given up on the idea of sleep, and it was much warmer walking around anyways, so Pam, Christine, and I walked down to the gas station (called petrol stations here) to get a paper and a real hot chocolate. (Did I mention it was cold?!) They routed you around the whole race track at the beginning, but the police officers took pity on us and let us hop the fence. (Always, always be nice to police officers! hehe) We walked back to our section and checked on everyone there. In our backpacks, we were given "thermal blankets" that look like a sheet of 5 by 5 foot pieces of aluminum foil. (Pardon me! Here it is pronounced
AL-U-MIN-E-UM.) Looking over our section reminded me of a bunch of Chipotle Burritos snuggled together. (Ok, maybe I do need a little more to eat.)

At 8am, after staying up staring at the Southern Cross before the clouds covered it up, we started Morning Prayers. After scraping our frozen bodies off of our plastic rafts, we went to toilet, brushed our teeth, and got ready for the Closing mass. (Some of us ate our hard dinner rolls for breakfast, but again, most of us skipped it and just drank more bad hot chocolate.)

We got out our Liturgy guides and decided to stay in section K for mass because we had a better view of the jumbo screens, BUT that wasn't all we had a better view of! The Pope drove around the track, this time slowly, and we had front row seats again! He waved to our group and smiled.
I got an awesome shot of him that we posted below. See how the Holy Spirit blesses us! What are the odds that we would get front row seats for the Pope twice??? It was awesome!

During mass this morning, the Aborigines brought the Gospel up to the altar in a beautiful dance to tribal music. Then after the homily and renewal of our baptismal promises. Pope Benedict confirmed 24 people! Can you imagine being confirmed in front of millions of people by the POPE??? The Holy Spirit is definitely present today.

The mass took three hours and ended with the announcement of WYD '11 being held in Madrid, Spain. The Spaniards went crazy! There excitement was catching!

The walk back to the bus stop was supposed to be a long one. (300,000 people trying to get on the same buses.) One of the locals took pity on us though, and told Erich how to get to a rarely used bus stop. It was a bit of a walk, but well worth it. The bus wasn't crowded and it took us all the way back to our hotel.

We got back to our hotel around three and had some free time until our 'nice dinner' started at 6:30pm. Some of us took naps, got showers, shopped in the stores on the strip, and Erich and I did another load of laundry. (It feels like home. jk) We decided to dress up for dinner this evening and the group really cleaned up well.

The meal was great too! We had three types of salad, mostaciolli with olives, chicken breasts, pork steaks, fruits and vegetables, and a cheese and cracker tray. It was a real meal, inside a warm building, and all of it was identifiable. AWESOME!!!! After dinner, some of the group went to get gelato, and some went to take a walk on the beach, and I came to blog so I could be in bed by midnight! (YAHOO!!!)

We love and miss you lots, and can't wait to come home and tell you all about our personal stories. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We promise to do the same!

P.S. Please remember that it takes about 10 minutes each time we post a single picture, and another 40 to do a video, so if we don't have a lot of what you'd like to see, I'm sorry. We promise to show you more when we get home!