Back in the summer of 2013, I went to my first international World Youth Day! On top of that, this was my first international pilgrimage!
We had a set and busy schedule involving things like attending the various World Youth Day events, getting insider info as to when and where the Pope would be, chasing after an obscurely located Matt Maher concert in the pouring rain, and enjoying the typical landmarks. However, as involved and busy as our plans were, they got derailed towards the end.
World Youth Day was started by Pope St. John Paul II as a way to unite young Catholics to encounter Christ. The first official World Youth Day was held in Rome, and after that they started hosting World Youth Days internationally. International World Youth Days happen every few years. Check out my post, What Is World Youth Day?, for more info.
Back in 2013, World Youth Day was held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. It was fitting because Pope Francis, who is from Argentina, had just been elected Pope a few months prior so in a way this was his first major event as Pope.
For this World Youth Day 2013 pilgrimage in Rio De Janeiro, I chaperoned a group of youth under the leadership of Jason over at Light & Heavy. His parish and my parish did a combined pilgrimage group of youth.
The Original Plan
World Youth Day is actually more of a week-long event. It starts off with opening ceremonies and a papal welcoming and Mass with the Pope when he arrives. In the days following that, different activities occur around the host city.
Some of these activities include prayer and spiritual growth opportunities or perhaps pilgrimages to local shrines and other places of sacred significance.
Other activities include catechesis sessions whereby bishops provide workshops and classes on topics related to the faith.
My pilgrimage group did all these things. We even went to a Matt Maher concert in the far outskirts of Rio De Janeiro! Although it took like four hours to get there due to rain and traffic. And we also saw Pope Francis giving a talk within the city!
World Youth Day culminates in a closing Mass, usually in some big open area whereby all pilgrims have to make the trek and camp overnight the night before.
Making this trek or pilgrimage to the site would have required us to take a bus outside of Rio, get dropped off, and then walk six miles or so to get to the field.
Change of Plans
Unfortunately, Rio de Janeiro received a lot of rain in the days leading up to World Youth Day, and the field originally planned for the closing Mass ended up being flooded!
The World Youth Day organizers made a nearly last-minute call to change the closing Mass location to Copacabana Beach where the papal welcome happened a few days prior.
No problem, because the hostel we stayed at was only a mile or two away from Copacabana Beach.
The evening before the closing Mass, we headed over to the beach to stake out a spot and have it be our campsite for the night.
We got set up, watched as literally hundreds of thousands of other pilgrims show up, and chilled until the Vigil Mass.
By the time Pope Francis arrived, millions of pilgrims had arrived at Copacabana, even filling the adjacent streets. We kind of fought to maintain our little patch of beach as other pilgrims were piling in and claiming their land, as it were.
After the Vigil Mass, we had Adoration. That was a really amazing experience adoring our Lord with millions of others on Copacabana Beach. Matt Maher was on stage singing, “Lord I Need You” and it was so cool.
But then some hard decisions had to be made…
Throw Away the Plan
Our original intent was to stay through the night and attend the closing Mass in the morning.
However, Rio is technically cold and rainy in July because it’s in the southern hemisphere. Due to being outside enduring some rain constantly surrounded by crowds, many of our youth started getting sick with colds and coughs if they weren’t already.
And allow me to stress the point that Copacabana was filled with millions of people.
They didn’t have a enough portable toilets deployed. In fact, it took a group of us 2 hours to get from our camp to the nearest portable toilets and wait in line.
Our camp was surrounded by many others’ camps, and it was a convoluted maze to get anywhere.
Some of the other pilgrims near us seemed a little shady.
So, Jason and us chaperones had to make an executive decision to return to our hostel for the night, and basically miss being present at the closing Mass.
That was a major bummer because we were all looking forward to attending the closing Mass. But with regards to the health and safety of our youth, we knew it was the best decision given the circumstances.
And so we snaked our way through the crowds and walked the few miles back to our hostel.
New Plan
The next day, we got to sleep in. And we were able to get the hostel staff to stream live video of the closing Mass on their computer.
Yeah, it sucked that we missed the Mass, but it was still joyful and cool to experience it together even if from a hostel.
A big part of the closing Mass is the announcement of the next World Youth Day. From the live stream on the hostel front desk computer, we still got to hear Pope Francis announce the next one to be in Krakow, Poland in 2016!
And there was much rejoicing and excitement!
Later that day, we were still able to attend a Mass at a local parish. It was in Portuguese, and we were the only pilgrims in there (aside from normal parishioners). That was really cool too and fitting because…
…we were all working on a devotion to consecrating ourselves to Jesus through the Virgin Mary. And the final day was the day of the closing Mass. because we weren’t able to go that Mass, Jason was able to choose a nearby parish named after the Virgin Mary so we could complete that devotion! How fitting!
The point of all this is…
Sometimes pilgrimages don’t go as planned. And that’s okay.
I think pilgrimages need to be approached with the proper interior disposition that is open to God’s will and the movement of the Holy Spirit. And yeah, sometimes health and safety take precedence over our own desires to experience cool things.
Having that interior disposition almost demands being able to be flexible. And with that flexibility, a sense of joy despite frustrating circumstances.
Question for you—have you taken a trip where your plans got really messed up?
JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.