Saturday July 12, 2008

Last night’s encounter with John Pridmore brought WYD right into our very home. He arrived just after 7pm and came into the Day Centre room to speak to our group. Mr. Pridmore was a gangster in London who had a conversion experience at the age of 27 and has now begun a lay association called St. Patrick’s Community. Our Little Sisters in Dublin Raheny gave hospitality to Mr. Pridmore and his first associates when their community was just beginning back in 2001, so he knows the Congregation well.

He began by confiding our time together to Our Lady, our Guardian Angels (asking them that the seeds God would sow during the evening might fall on good soil) and our patron saints from our Confirmation. John then told us a bit of his life story and conversion experience, and about the formation of St. Patrick’s Community. To read his story you can visitwww.johnpridmore.com.

His desire after his conversion was to share the knowledge of God’s love that he had received with others, and to help them to become all that God wants them to be. Involvement with a Benedictine Youth Group, the Youthe 2000 movement and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal led him to begin St. Patrick’s Community, based in the Irish diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois. The bishop there has given them a house to reside in, but they spend much of their time travelling, doing 5 night missions at parishes. The missions include John’s story of conversion, then an evening of the sacrament of reconciliation, an evening of Eucharistic adoration and blessing of participants with the Blessed Sacrament, and a Marian evening. Right now there are just five members of St. Patrick’s Community, including one young man from the States. They make promises of obedience to their local bishop and to the community servant, no exclusive relationships and reliance on God’s providence.

John has written a book about his conversion experience, and will be speaking a few different times during World Youth Day. His story was published by xt3.com, which is a group founded to evangelize through the media. With WYD they have begun a social networking site along the lines of Facebook or MySpace, which has already attracted 20,000 members. One of the founders of xt3 (which stands for Christ in the 3^rd Millennium) received his inspiration from Pope John Paul II at a WYD 20 years ago when JPII said, “It is the task of young people to bring Christ into the third millennium.” 20 years from now, we’ll see what the fruits of this WYD in Sydney will be!

This evening we welcomed a group of American pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Washington, 4 girls from the home's Hospitality Club and their two chaperones. They had spent the past week in the northern Australian city of Cairns, and will stay here for two nights until their WYD lodging is ready. A group of 75 pilgrims from France arrived today as well. More visitors from other parts of the world are on their way. The home's walls seem to be expanding accordingly! God bless.

Friday July 11, 2008

What a difference a few days can make. Last Saturday when we went to the cathedral and across the street to Hyde Park very few people were circulating. Now the pilgrimage tours of the cathedral have begun and pilgrims are arriving from everywhere. While we took the bus downtown with Mother Provincial Ann Marie, Sr. Maureen and Sr. Maria Ann, a group of elderly Little Sisters from the community, accompanied by Sr. Alba and an aspirant from Tonga, Anna , went down in the home’s car.

As you enter the cathedral you receive an image of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, help of Christians, one of the patrons of WYD (see http://xrl.in/92n). The pilgrimage tour takes you down the center aisle, then over to the left where this new painting hangs. On the back of the image received at the entrance is a prayer of Consecration to Our Lady, and instructions for receiving a plenary indulgence by making this tour. The next stop on the tour is an exhibit about Blessed Mary MacKillop, then a pass by the old altar and the relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. The tour is set up well to handle the pilgrims that will come next week. We were happy to have the chance to go before the crowds come.

While we toured upstairs, the elderly Little Sisters and their companions visited the crypt church, where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration and a collection of icons are on display. Unfortunately the handicapped access to the upper church is not yet completed, so they could not go through the tour as we did.

The Lord continues to remind us what a small world it is, as we encountered lay people, priests and Sisters whom we have met in other parts of the world. At home today a young woman who knows our Sisters in Dublin stopped in. She is accompanying one of the featured WYD speakers, John Pridmore, and he will be coming this evening to speak to us, the Residents and some friends of the home.We’ll share more about him tomorrow; now it’s time to take a quick bite before he arrives. As we prepare to welcome Benedict XVI, happy feast of St. Benedict! God bless.

Thursday July 10, 2008

The “day” of World Youth Day is definitely drawing near. This morning our group leaders went with our parish representative to pick up our pilgrim backpacks and passes. It may sound like a simple task, but actually took the whole morning to accomplish, for a number of reasons. The Sisters representing CMSWR are helping at the distribution sites, and were there when our group arrived. One of them, a member of the Disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was in a discernment house with one of our novices, proving again what a small world it really is. Mission accomplished, everyone at home was happy to discover the contents of the sacks and get a first look at our “passports” for the week, which will gain us admission to all the major events and free travel on Sydney buses. There were a lot of complications with the registration process, so we were always concerned about a problem cropping up, but now we’re official!

In the afternoon Sr. Carmel, of the home here in Sydney, and her brother took us on a “locals” tour of the city. Born and raised here, they offered us a view of Sydney from a native’s eye. We stopped first at the shrine of Blessed Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first blessed (see http://xrl.in/901), who is one of the patrons of WYD. The Shrine is very peaceful now, and we were happy to see it before the crowds come next week. A Sister of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Congregation founded by Blessed Mary), gave us relics and holy cards of her, and treated us to coffee in the Shrine’s coffee shop. We were touched by her hospitality, and are told by Sr. Carmel that their Sisters are always equally gracious to us.

Next stop was a tour of Sydney Harbor on the local ferry. This peaceful ride lasted about an hour and a half, and gave us a chance to see our former home in Drummoyne (now owned by the Scalabrinis), the Olympic Village from the Olympics of 2000 and to pass right under the Harbor Bridge and right by the Opera House. All that at a much more reasonable rate than the $50.00 tour boats! God bless.