World Youth Day in Sydney - July 2008

July 25th, 2008 12:34 am

Over the last week, Sydney was buzzing with excitement. A huge global event, the World Youth day was held here. It is a gathering of young people from all over the world who have one thing in common: they are catholic and actively involved in church, prayer, missionary work, charitable work and so on.

About 125,000 pilgrims from many different nations gathered here. We hosted two of them in our place. I got involved in as many events as I could and spent a lot of time in the city over the last week. The atmosphere was lovely. Groups of young people were everywhere. While moving about they sang, played instruments, clapped or stopped somewhere and started dancing and singing. Some of the songs were more like chants, repeating a few simple words or phrases. A lot of them sounded like yoga chants and had a very similar effect on me. One group did a lovely circle dance.

Those young people were genuinely happy and running on “very little sleep, adrenalin and cups of coffee” as one newspaper article described it. For me, one of the highlights was the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This massive bridge does not get closed very often. It is very special to be able to walk across it. (without any trucks or cars going past you).

I had no concept of how many people 125,000 people really are. Now I have an idea! The first pilgrims started walking across the bridge at about 6am. The last ones were allowed onto the bridge at 2pm. They all had set out on a 9.6km walk. I walked with them for about 4km. Then I found myself a good spot where I could observe everybody going past. There was a steady stream of people for a total of 8 hours. Imagine a parade conisting of lots of people walking past you and not stopping for 8 hours. You don’t see the same group or person twice. The different groups carried their national flags or items of religious significance with them. The local Hare Krishna devotees had joined the walk and drummed and chanted their way along. They blended in really well.

The next day was the final mass, celebrated by the Pope who is the absolute highest leader of the the catholic church. Attendance at that mass was between 400,000 and 500,000 people. I had never seen such an “ocean” of people. It is hard to describe the magnitude of the crowds and what it felt like being part of it. If I understood correctly, there had never been so many people in one place in Australia before.

I am certainly glad that I took part in as many events as I could, it was an amazing experience. It is interesting to see that all spiritual practices and rituals contain very similar elements. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter which path someone has chosen, if they are confident that it is the right path and deep within their hearts they truly believe that they have found their calling, they will be happy. This happiness is contagious. It only took 125,000 people to make a huge impact in a City of close to 4 million. Unfortunately it didn’t last. It certainly planted a seed.

World Youth Day was the idea of a previous Pope and now has become a regular event. The next one will be held in the capital of Spain, Madrid.