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It is almost mandatory to look back on the Prayer Vigil led by Benedict XVI at the last WYD in Madrid in 2011. It was an extraordinary experience in more ways than one for all who were there and those of us who watched on TV...
A sudden thunderstorm with strong winds broke just as the Pope was starting his homily at the prayer vigil, resulting in a suspension of the ceremonies while waiting for the wind to abate. The gusts were so strong that the rain was blowing right into the Pope and an umbrella had to be held directly in front of him to keep him - and the text of his homily - from getting soaked!... Already delayed by half an hour, the Pope finally resumed speaking around 10 p.m., Madrid time, when the wind and rain did stop, but he limited himself to the plurilingual greetings. Then he left the stage as security and engineers checked out the scaffolding holding up the protective 'tree' directly above the Pope's chair, apparently deciding whether it would be safer to take it down in case more winds come... Well, they obviously thought it could stay up, and the Pope came back dressed in cope and miter for the Eucharistic Adoration ... The event has since become iconic for a WYD Prayer Vigil with Eucharistic Adoration...
THE POPE AT WYD 2011: Day 3
Eucharistic adoration and prayer vigil
Cuatro Vientos Airbase
August 20, 2011
Illustratio: The monstrance of Arfe, a 9-foot-tall monstrance from the Cathedral of Toledo, used for tonight's Eucharistic Adoration.
The Italian news agency SIR reports that Spanish TV's estimate of the attendance at Cuatro Vientos is TWO MILLION!...That is a record for WYD prayer vigils!
The stage is so wide one can hardly make out the Pope in the view above.
Pope thanks the youth
for 'resisting' the storm
August 20, 2011
Pope Benedict listened to young people at World Youth Day expressing their concerns about the future and urged them all to find their true vocation in society.
But a sudden storm and high winds prevented the Pope from delivering his homily to the some two million young people gathered in Madrid's Cuatro Vientos airbase for a mega prayer vigil on Saturday evening. Our correspondant Emer McCarthy reports:
“Es-ta es/la joventud del Papa! This is the Pope’s youth!”, the chant erupted spontaneously from the multitudes as the winds and rain beat down upon them in the aptly named Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds) airport.
After days of incessant and stifling heat, not even the tempest that interrupted the Holy Father mid-homily could quench the enthusiasm of Benedict XVI’s generation, an estimatedtwo million strong on Saturday night.
“We know you were all out in the sun this afternoon and asking for more water...well, here it is!”, the young presenter announced from the stage.
And as the Pope waited patiently for the storm to pass - [protected behind giant umbrellas from being drenched, it must be said] - organisers invited the jubilant pilgrims to pray for the rain to cease.
Instead, their voices rose as one in a continuous chorus “This is the Pope’s youth!” and that chorus rang out across Madrid.
They had begun arriving mid-morning, many travelling the 8 kms to the airport on foot under a searing sun with temperatures hitting 40° Celsius. Madrid’s bomberos (firemen), on top of fire trucks, directed water hoses to spray the crowds with water mist, as they have done since the events began on Tuesday.
The liturgy of the Word had just begun, following the procession of the World Youth Day Cross and icon. Five young people, from the UK, Kenya, the USA, the Philippines, and Germany had only just posed their questions to Pope Benedict when the storm begun, ripping the zucchetto from the Pope’s head.
Michael from the UK, a convert to Catholicism, had asked the Pope who Christ really is and whether he was for all of humanity or only for Christians.
Roselyne from Kenya, spoke of her work on behalf of the victims of famine in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia and asked the Pope how can she help the poor and suffering understand that God has not forgotten about them.
Robert from the USA, spoke of how he will marry in a month’s time and asked Pope Benedict for advice on how to faithfully live the vocation to marriage.
Kirtzia from the Philippines spoke of how it was difficult at times to witness her faith in society, ande the young German Kathleen, a non-believer attracted by the figure of Christ, asked for guidance.
Pope Benedict never got to delivering his his homily. Instead when the winds and rain had calmed, the Holy Father proceeded to pronounce his greetings to pilgrims in diverse languages and then left the raised altar to change vestments for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
As he left the stage, firemen clambered onto the stage scaffolding to ensure the safety of overhanging scaffolding, while the young people continued to chant.
The Pope emerged shortly afterwards, and once the crowds had quietened, invited the millions who had answered his call to join him in a night of Eucharistic adoration.
As he knelt before the altar, the XVth century monstrance “Custodia di Arfe” from the Toledo Cathedral rose from centre of the stage to the clamour of two million voices.
Then, silence descended on Cuatro Ventos as the Pope knelt to lead the Adoration.
Before taking his leave, Pope Benedict greeted once more the representatives who had joined him at the start, adding the following words to the crowd:
“Dear young people we have lived an adventure together; firm in our faith in Christ we have resisted the rain! Before I go I would like to wish you all a good night. Thank you for your joy and your resistance! Thank you for the incredible example you have given. Like this night with Christ. you can always overcome life’s trials, never forget this!”
Here is the official Vatican translation of the homily that the Pope would have delIVered:
Dear Young Friends,
I greet all of you, especially the young people who have asked me their questions, and I thank them for the sincerity with which they set forth their concerns, that express the longing which all of you have to achieve something great in life, something which can bring you fulfilment and happiness.
How can a young person be true to the faith and yet continue to aspire to high ideals in today’s society? In the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus gives us an answer to this urgent question: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” (Jn 15:9).
Yes, dear friends, God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful. We are not the product of blind chance or absurdity; instead our life originates as part of a loving plan of God.
To abide in his love, then, means living a life rooted in faith, since faith is more than the mere acceptance of certain abstract truths: it is an intimate relationship with Christ, who enables us to open our hearts to this mystery of love and to live as men and women conscious of being loved by God.
If you abide in the love of Christ, rooted in the faith, you will encounter, even amid setbacks and suffering, the source of true happiness and joy.
Faith does not run counter to your highest ideals; on the contrary, it elevates and perfects those ideals. Dear young people, do not be satisfied with anything less than Truth and Love, do not be content with anything less than Christ.
Nowadays, although the dominant culture of relativism all around us has given up on the search for truth, even if it is the highest aspiration of the human spirit, we need to speak with courage and humility of the universal significance of Christ as the Saviour of humanity and the source of hope for our lives.
He who took upon himself our afflictions, is well acquainted with the mystery of human suffering and manifests his loving presence in those who suffer. They in their turn, united to the passion of Christ, share closely in his work of redemption.
Furthermore, our disinterested attention towards the sick and the forgotten will always be a humble and warm testimony of God’s compassionate regard.
Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.
During this prayer vigil, I urge you to ask God to help you find your vocation in society and in the Church, and to persevere in that vocation with joy and fidelity. It is a good thing to open our hearts to Christ’s call and to follow with courage and generosity the path he maps out for us.
The Lord calls many people to marriage, in which a man and a woman, in becoming one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24), find fulfilment in a profound life of communion.
It is a prospect that is both bright and demanding. It is a project for true love which is daily renewed and deepened by sharing joys and sorrows, one marked by complete self-giving.
For this reason, to acknowledge the beauty and goodness of marriage is to realize that only a setting of fidelity and indissolubility, along with openness to God’s gift of life, is adequate to the grandeur and dignity of marital love.
Christ calls others to follow him more closely in the priesthood or in consecrated life. It is hard to put into words the happiness you feel when you know that Jesus seeks you, trusts in you, and with his unmistakable voice also says to you: “Follow me!” (cf. Mk 2:14).
Dear young people, if you wish to discover and to live faithfully the form of life to which the Lord is calling each of you, you must remain in his love as his friends.
And how do we preserve friendship except through frequent contact, conversation, being together in good times and bad? Saint Teresa of Avila used to say that prayer is just such “friendly contact, often spending time alone with the one who we know loves us” (cf. Autobiography, 8).
And so I now ask you to “abide” in the adoration of Christ, truly present in the Eucharist. I ask you to enter into conversation with him, to bring before him your questions and to listen to his voice.
Dear friends, I pray for you with all my heart. And I ask you to pray for me. Tonight let us ask the Lord to grant that, attracted by the beauty of his love, we may always live faithfully as his disciples. Amen.
He then proceeded to address various groups in their neative languages:
[French] Dear young French-speakers, be proud of the gift of faith which you have received, as it will illumine your life at every moment.
Draw strength from the faith of your neighbours, from the faith of the Church! Through faith we are grounded in Christ. Gather with others to deepen it, be faithful to the celebration of the Eucharist, the mystery of faith par excellence.
Christ alone can respond to your aspirations. Let yourselves be seized by God, so that your presence in the Church will give her new life!
[English] Dear young people, in these moments of silence before the Blessed Sacrament, let us raise our minds and hearts to Jesus Christ, the Lord of our lives and of the future.
May he pour out his Spirit upon us and upon the whole Church, that we may be a beacon of freedom, reconciliation and peace for the whole world.
[German] Dear young Christians from the German-speaking countries! Deep in our hearts we yearn for what is grand and beautiful in life.
Do not let your desires and aspirations dissipate, but ground them in Jesus Christ. He himself is the sure foundation, the point of reference, for building up your life.
[Italian] I now turn to the Italian-speaking young people. Dear friends, this vigil will remain as an unforgettable experience in your lives. Guard the flame which God has lit in your hearts tonight. Never let it go out, renew it each day, share it with your contemporaries who live in darkness and who are seeking a light for their way. Thank you! Until tomorrow morning!
[Portuguese] My dear friends, I invite each of you to enter into a personal dialogue with Christ, sharing with him your hesitations and above all listening to his voice. The Lord is here and he is calling you!
Young friends, it is good to hear within us the word of Jesus and to follow in his footsteps. Ask the Lord to help you to discover your vocation in life and in the Church, and to persevere in it with joy and fidelity, knowing that he never abandons you or betrays you! He remains with us until the end of the world.
[Polish] Dear young friends from Poland! This prayer vigil is filled with the presence of Christ. Grounded in his love, draw near to him with the flame of your faith. He will fill your hearts with his life. Build your lives on Christ and on his Gospel. I willingly bless all of you.
Some scenes of the crowd before the arrival of the Pope:
The crowd at mid-day...
BTW, if you were unable to watch the coverage, one of the early surprises of the event was the attendance of Crown Prince Felipe and his wife Leticia who greeted the Pope when he arrived at the foot of the stage.
P.S. 2013 Although Benedict XVI only spent 4 days in Madrid - the duration of is participation in WYD 2011 - his schedule was crammed with non-WYD events. The day before the prayer vigil, Day 2 of his visit, he travelled outside Madrid to El Escorial, the great medieval monastery-palace complex that was built for Charles V when he was Holy Roman Emperor. There, he addressed young professors and students, as well as young religious. Before the prayer vigil, he met with the leader of what was then the Spanish opposition party, since when Mariano Rajoy led his Partido Popular to electoral victory over the Socialists and is now the Prime Minister of Spain. But the more interesting encounter, though it received little coverage, not even from Vatican Radio, was is visit to a diocesan hospital for disabled youth. VATICAN INSIDER provided a good background and context story before the event...
THE POPE AT WYD 2011: Day 3
Visit to the Fundacion San Jose
Hospital for Disabled Youth
The Pope is just now giving his address at the hospital... VATICAN INSiDER had this advance story about the event...
WYD and the gospel of suffering:
Pope ensures festive WYD does
not forget the mystery of pain
by Giacomo Galeazzi
MADRID, Aug. 20 - This evening the Pope will visit a centre for people with disabilities, preceding the great Prayer Vigil with the youth at Cuatro Vientos airbase.
The more human and touching side of the World Youth Day can be seen when it comes into contact with pain. The meditation that took place during the Stations of the Cross yesterday, with texts written by the Sisters of the Poor, the unscheduled dialogue that took place between the Pope and a child suffering from cancer [NB: This is thei first time I am reading about this - have to research it!] and Benedict XVI’s visit to the “Spanish Cottolengo” [Cottolengo is a similar institution in Turin founded by one of the great 19th-century social saints of that Italian city,] in the heart of Madrid, depict the gospel of suffering, the other side of the “fiesta” of faith. It is a visit scheduled at the express wish of Benedict XVI.
The Fundación Instituto San José, run by the Hospitaliers of san Juan de Dios, is a center for the disabled and people with serious neuro-degenerative diseases.
Benedict XVI sees such centers as a useful stimulus for the continued improvement of care administered to the suffering, especially ahead of the solemn celebration of a special World Day of the Sick which will be celebrated in 2013 in the Marian sanctuary of Altötting, the Bavarian shrine which Joseph Ratzinger and his family frequented in the years of his childhood and youth.
Benedict XVI has often said that science’s efforts to cure the sick must never be separated from faith in the merciful God. The theologian Popoe says faith in a merciful God can bring a sense to the experience of pain.
In his work as an intellectual and as the guide of the Church, Joseph Ratzinger has often contemplated the worrying questions raised constantly by the mystery of sickness and pain, aware that most of the time it is humanly impossible to find an answer.
Since suffering is part of our humanity, the Pope points out the deep connection between Jesus’s Cross - as the supreme symbol of pain and the price of our true freedom - and human pain which is transformed and exalted when it is experienced in the awareness of God’s solidarity and closeness.
Even amidst the festivities of World Youth Day, Benedict XVI asked for the inclusion of moments of reflection on the mystery of suffering, and above all, for Christian communities and civil society towards the sick and the handicapped.
At the core of Joseph Ratzinger’s Christianity is the belief that if every human being is a brother, it is especially important that the weak, the suffering and those in need of care, be at the centre of our attention, so that none of these individuals feels neglected or marginalised.
According to Papa Ratzinger, a person’s humanity is measured necessarily by his or her relationship with suffering and the suffering. And this is as true about individuals as it is about society. A society that is unable to accept the suffering is a cruel and inhumane society. A conscience that follows in the footsteps of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who is commemorated by the Church in today's liturgy, who said “God cannot suffer but he is compassionate.”
[2013 P.S. Reading and hearing the media these days, and the prepondreance of Catholic commentators well, one would think Pope Francis invented the idea of being 'compassionate and merciful', that no Pope before him had ever been compassionate and merciful, or preached compassion and mercy!]
Here is the Vatican translation of the Pope's remarks at the Fundacion San Jose:
REMARKS OF THE HOLY fATHER
AT THE SAN JOSE HOSPITAL
Your Eminence,
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear Priests and Religious of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God,
Distinguished Authorities,
Dear Young People, Family Members and Volunteers,
I thank you most sincerely for your kind greeting and heartfelt welcome.
This evening, just before the Prayer Vigil with the young people from throughout the world gathered in Madrid for this World Youth Day, we have this chance to spend time together as a way of showing the Pope’s closeness and esteem for each of you, for your families and for all those who help and care for you in this Instituto Fundacion San Jose.
Youth, as I have said more than once, is the age when life discloses itself to us with all its rich possibilities, inspiring us to seek the lofty goals which give it meaning.
So when suffering appears on the horizon of a young life, we are shaken; perhaps we ask ourselves: “Can life still be something grand, even when suffering unexpectedly enters it?”
In my Encyclical on Christian hope, I observed that “the true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer … A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘com-passion’ is a cruel and inhuman society” (Spe Salvi, 38).
These words reflect a long tradition of humanity which arises from Christ’s own self-offering on the Cross for us and for our redemption. Jesus and, in his footsteps, his Sorrowful Mother and the saints, are witnesses who shows us how to experience the tragedy of suffering for our own good and for the salvation of the world.
These witnesses speak to us, first and foremost, of the dignity of all human life, created in the image of God. No suffering can efface this divine image imprinted in the depths of our humanity.
But there is more: because the Son of God wanted freely to embrace suffering and death, we are also capable of seeing God’s image in the face of those who suffer.
This preferential love of the Lord for the suffering helps us to see others more clearly and to give them, above and beyond their material demands, the look of love which they need. But this can only happen as the fruit of a personal encounter with Christ.
You yourselves – as religious, family members, health care professionals and volunteers who daily live and work with these young people – know this well.
Your lives and your committed service proclaim the greatness to which every human being is called: to show compassion and loving concern to the suffering, just as God himself did. In your noble work we hear an echo of the words found in the Gospel: “just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
At the same time, you are also witnesses of the immense goodness which the lives of these young people represent for those who love them, and for humanity as a whole. In a mysterious yet real way, their presence awakens in our often hardened hearts a tenderness which opens us to salvation. The lives of these young people surely touch human hearts and for that reason we are grateful to the Lord for having known them.
Dear friends, our society, which all too often questions the inestimable value of life, of every life, needs you: in a decisive way you help to build the civilization of love.
What is more, you play a leading role in that civilization. As sons and daughters of the Church, you offer the Lord your lives, with all their ups and downs, cooperating with him and somehow becoming “part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race” (Spe Salvi, 40).
With great affection, and through the intercession of Saint Joseph, Saint John of God and Saint Benito Menni, I commend you to God our Lord: may he be your strength and your reward.
As a pledge of his love, I cordially impart to you, and to your families and friends, my Apostolic Blessing. Thank you very much.
7/31/13
P.S.I must apologize - I thought I had posted this promptly in this space the night I posted about Pope Francis's Prayer Vigil in Rio. Because the Madrid Prayer Vigil was so epochal it was mandatory to post it here! I could not figure out what happened to the post until just now - It turns out I mistakenly re-posted it in the August 2011 box - over-writing my original post with my 2013 update... The repost is certainly well worth the while...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/08/2013 01:18] |