'How can we transform the world?'

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

Photography: TOM TRACY | FC

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HOMESTEAD | A domestic edition of World Youth Day, linking Miami’s Catholic young people to the official WYD celebrations, is likely an ongoing option as news broke last weekend that the next edition of the international event will be in the distant city of Seoul, South Korea. 

On Aug. 6, 2023, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski celebrated the closing Mass for a weeklong WYD regional festival sponsored by the Miami-based Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious community of men and women, along with the Archdiocese of Miami’s Pastoral Juvenil Hispana (Hispanic Young Adult Ministry). 

At the same time, Pope Francis concluded the official WYD Lisbon event in Portugal, Aug. 1-6. The target age for WYD is generally 18 to 35, not including chaperones and adult leaders. 

While a delegation of Miami Catholic young people did travel to WYD in Portugal, as many as 200 South Florida youths unable to travel internationally participated locally in the festival held at parishes throughout the region, which culminated with a walking pilgrimage to the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Schoenstatt in Homestead, and an overnight vigil at a retreat space the Pierced Hearts maintain nearby called the Land of the Pierced Hearts.

Haitian and English-speaking youths and young adults were also part of the local WYD events. 

Speaking of the Sunday Gospel account of Christ’s transfiguration, Archbishop Wenski described the account as an analogy for not a superficial external “makeover” but an internal spiritual transformation that the church and Pope Francis call young people to embrace during WYD. 

“His ‘makeover’ on Mount Tabor tells us something about who Jesus is and what his mission was: He is the Son of Man who has come into the world to redeem the world through death and resurrection,” the archbishop said. 

“And why would Jesus suffer and die? To make our own ‘make-over’ possible, not just superficial, on the outside, but on the inside, one that changes us and makes us sons and daughters of God,” Archbishop Wenski said. “And who wouldn't want such a ‘makeover’ and who doesn't need it? How can we transform ourselves? How can we transform the world?”

Even today, the archbishop continued, people rely too much on the love of power to transform themselves and others. “However, Jesus tells us that the path to a true makeover is not through the love of power, but through the power of love. 

“Peter would have liked to stay on Mount Tabor, and at times we have had similar ‘mountaintop experiences’ that we wish would never end, such as a time perhaps when God seemed particularly close to us or such as when we fell in love for the first time,” the archbishop continued. “But then life calls us back to reality. Jesus tells us, as he told Peter, that we have to come down from the mountain.”

 

INCREDIBLE RESPONSE

The response to the Miami WYD was greater than anyone could have imagined, according to organizer Sister Alexia Zaldivar, a member of the Pierced Hearts who serves as committee chair of Miami’s Pastoral Juvenil Hispana. 

Sister Alexia noted that the theme of the WYD Miami week had been “encountering one another” and then ultimately “encountering Christ” through the all night eucharistic adoration that led up to the closing outdoor Mass with Archbishop Wenski. 

“The reality is that so many of our youth can’t (travel) but that doesn't limit us and now we are so connected more than ever; even just through social communications we have been keeping up with all the youth in Lisbon,” said Sister Alexia. 

The delegation of Catholic young people who traveled to Lisbon along with Miami vocations director Father Matthew Gomez were regularly sending video highlights of their experience which the group in Homestead then watched on a large screen TV.  

“We are able to be a part of the celebration from home. So I will definitely be doing this in the future,” Sister Alexia added. 

Brother Iñigo Johnpaul, one of the brothers of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts, noted that WYD’s founder, Pope St. John Paul II, often told young people not to be afraid to be the “saints of the third millennium,” and the spirit of that message lives on in 2023. 

“Some things are different and some the same as past WYDs: the youths’ thirst for something more, a thirst for God and Christ and a thirst to be who they were called to be and made to be — and that can only be done united to Christ,” Brother Iñigo said. 

With the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and many other modern realities, many young people in general had become isolated, he added.

“You realize you are not alone. Youth may feel they are swimming against the tide, but they can see that together they can make a difference,” and that in Christ they can be who they were meant to be and enjoy Christian friendships with their peers. 

“If anything, this pandemic has shown us that without the Lord we can do nothing, and I think the youth realize that it is a moment in history to make that choice: Are we going to come out stronger or not?” Brother Iñigo said. “This has brought the youth together and they have each other.”  

UNITED WITH LISBON

With their green WYD Miami shirts and backpacks, and the intense summer heat and humidity, the local young people were united with their compatriots in Lisbon throughout the week, according to Gustavo Mejia, a member of St. Joseph Parish in Miami Beach and a coordinator with the Pastoral Juvenil Hispana.

“Pope John Paul II desired that young people from all over the world gather to encounter Jesus, to grow in their faith and to know that they are not alone,” Mejia said. “He called them to discover that youth is the time to make choices with values and conviction that would forge their futures and cooperate in their present to do good in society.”

Father Joseph Rogers, who in 2021 who became the first priest to join a new male branch of the Pierced Hearts religious community, was on hand last week to meet the young people and offer the sacrament of reconciliation throughout the weekend in Homestead. 

“The church has a certain respect and admiration for the young and the young have a particular mission in the life of the church,” Father Rogers said.

“This time is among most important stages of their life when God will encourage them to ask fundamental questions and not to be afraid to ask the fundamental questions: What does God intend for their life? How can they live their life with so many difficulties and challenges today? And to trust that Christ is the one who has the answers to their questions,” Father Rogers said, adding that he attended the 2002 WYD in Toronto. 

WYD is a visible sign that the church recognizes today's young people face so many challenges and are often “overcome by depression, isolation, economic situations, family situations, immigration struggles; and they don’t know who to go to,” Father Rogers said.

“Open wide the doors of your hearts to Christ – just as John Paul said – and give Christ the place he can have to respond to the questions in your heart, and to develop the kind of friendships in solidarity that will give you the strength to find who you are called to be and to discover the joy of giving your life to Christ,” he added. 

Sister María José Socias, a member of the Pierced Hearts who serves at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Miami, said she enjoyed the late-night concert of praise and worship music that took place during the overnight vigil in Homestead Aug. 5-6. The Pierced Heart sisters also sang several songs from their new CD of Catholic hymns. 

Throughout the weekend, the young people could be heard chanting, “Lord have mercy, Jesus have mercy, we trust in you,” and “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us,” especially while walking in the Marian pilgrimage to the nearby Schoenstatt shrine. 

“They were hearing the words of the Holy Father calling the youth to be ‘missionaries of joy’,” Sister María José said. Having that joy in their hearts and communicating it to others is “the gift” that young people have to offer, she added.