I just arrived from Copacabana Beach, where we had the Welcoming Ceremony of the Pope! I am dead tired, but it was worthwhile. What beautiful experience to be with the Vicar of Christ and more than a million young people in prayer!
My day started with the catechesis in the morning. Today I went to the basilica of Immaculate Conception, which is located in Botafogo Beach. The parish was hosting an English Catechesis, and a lot of pilgrims there were from the USA (the church was packed with pilgrims from Brooklyn, Minnesota, Canada, England, Jamaica, and Australia). The speaker today was Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn Frank Caggiano (each day they have a different bishop speaker at the catechesis). It was nice to hear the real New York accent again! The theme of today’s catechesis was “Discipleship”. Bishop Caggiano stressed that to be a disciple of Christ means to be his friend, and that the Christ is the only friend will never abandon us. After the talk, a girl from Queens gave her testimony and told us that this WYD was wakeup call on her faith. Mass was celebrated by 5 bishops and about 20 priests — it was really nice.
After Mass, I had lunch and went with my pilgrim companion Fr Dana Lundburg to Copacabana (Fr Dana is from California and currently is the superior of the LC community in Rio). It was about 2:30 pm and the event would start at 6 pm. We thought that we would be the first ones in Copacabana. To our surprise, Copacabana was already crowded (I guess everyone had the same idea). We started to walk around to find a nice spot at the beach, as close as possible to the main stage. We spent the next three hours walking and met on the way with several legionaries and RC members from the several countries (even a group from South Korea).
Once we found a spot, we waited. It was pretty far, but it was the best we could find. At 6 pm the Pope’s helicopter arrived at the other side of the beach. He started to make his way through the avenue close to the beach. Everyone was so excited. You could see flags from every country of the world. He took almost an hour to get to the other side; we were following him through a screen (the beach has screens every 100 yards). It was amazing when he passed in front of us.
The ceremony was very beautiful. I highly recommend reading Pope Francis’ two speeches. The Gospel of the transfiguration was read and during his reflection, Pope Francis emphasized the importance to believe. He used the expression “botar fé”, which as very youthful way to say “to truly believe, to put on faith”. He wants us all know that our real hope is to be friends of Jesus. I was really thrilled to see how much Pope Francis wants to connect with young people and speak their language. The Holy Father brings so much light into our lives; we need to thank God for giving us such a good shepherd.
The Ceremony ended around 8 pm, but we were not able to leave the beach until 9 pm. On the way back I was so tired that I slept in the bus as I prayed the rosary. It is a good thing that I was not alone; otherwise I would be still in the bus somewhere else in Rio!
Now I will go rest, because tomorrow I have translation duty in the morning and in the afternoon the Stations of the Cross with the Holy Father! God bless!
