Don't be afraid
I've waited a little with this entry because the topic seems larger than life and I feel frustrated before I've even started.
Last weekend Lincoln and I went to the World Youth Day in Toronto. About a million young people meet each other and the Pope.
It's actually not possible to describe what it's like, so I won't try. If someone really wants to know... they should go.
It's not the easiest thing to be Catholic nowadays, although I'm sure it never was. There's a lot of deserved and undeserved criticism. What's probably most painful at times is the personal aspect. I can see that a lot of people can't understand that the connection to one's faith and especially one's church can be a very strong one, emotionally as well as spiritually. I wish I could explain it. I find myself quite lost trying to project the right picture of what it is.
To sum up my own joy about the World Youth Day: The Holy Father just never seems to miss the "point". Trying to live life in truth and charity is mostly not very poetic, although there are wonderful moments. It's rather discouraging and hard and sometimes quite annoying. To have the Pope come and tell you that you are not alone in this and that what you are trying to do is possible is just unbelievable. It helps that there are hundreds of thosand of people to prove it.
Anyway to spare you all the flowery talk, I will post a few links that document the event.
"Why have you come together from all parts of the world? To say in your hearts: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6:68). Jesus - the intimate friend of every young person - has the words of life.
The world you are inheriting is a world which desperately needs a new sense of brotherhood and human solidarity. It is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God's love. It needs witnesses to that love. It needs you - to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world."