Benedetto!!!
Greetings! Today was the second day of Catechesis for our group. It was filled with beautiful music again and wise words from a different bishop today. The major highlight of the day would be Pope Benedict’s boat ride and drive around Sydney. I was able to see him for about 5 seconds because the pope-mobile was going a bit fast as you may watch below, but it is always amazing to get the opportunity to see the Holy Father and hear people from all around the world chanting “Benedetto!”
As far as our living environment; the three showers are working out great for all of us. If you have never experienced WYD before, during the WYD week, you receive meal tickets and lunch and dinner are served at certain stations usually following Catechesis or any other major activity of the day. Recently our diet has conisisted of mainly sausage, meat pies, and different forms of stew. I don’t know about the rest of the group but I am craving some rice and beans.
On another note, we have been celebrating Mass together everyday and are definitely looking inside ourselves and searching for ways to expand our love and knowledge of God. Tomorrow we will witness the stations of the cross. Please continue to pray for us and for vocations. Many thanks for all comments and prayers.
-Cynthia
The Importance of Witness
I have been somewhat surprised and saddened by the negative spin the local media is taking on the pope’s arrival in Australia and on World Youth Day. It seems everyone has joined the sport of Catholic-bashing. Interestingly, the only columnist in the local papers that called the Catholic-bashing a “sorry sport” is himself a former Catholic and avowed agnostic!
I think that this attitude, which is not quite so prevalent in the U.S., gives us reason to continue to do what we are doing – living our faith humbly, honestly, and yet publicly, when possible. That is precisely what 200,000 young people are doing in Sydney! They are witnessing to the hope their faith affords them. In joy and humility – and this is something that crosses generations. It’s great to see the faces of bishops light up when they see so many young pilgrims on fire for their faith.
Today we welcome the Holy Father to Sydney. I also will man the vocations booth at the convention center. Some of the San Antonio pilgrims plan to join me for that. G’day, mates!
-Bishop Cantu
Strengthening our Faith
All 150 of the people staying at St. Charles Catholic School were woken by a fire alarm this morning. Thank goodness that there was no fire because the school we are staying in is newly renovated, but it served as a nice wake up call for all of the pilgrims. Although about five fire trucks showed up, the alarm merely seemed to be set off by steam from a coffee pot.
A couple of hours following this event, the entire group enjoyed their first session of catechesis at Holy Cross parish. The first two hours of catechesis were filled with music and skits provided by a youth group of Liverpool, England and a 30 minute talk by a Bishop of Liverpool. Following this, we celebrated Mass and then enjoyed a BBQ on the lawn by the church. (The group was treated with a surprise when Bishop Cantú showed up and joined in the catechesis session)
After the BBQ the groups were free to go to any WYD event they chose to go to. The big event that most planned on going to today was a festival put on by the Franciscan order on a local beach.
Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI will be making his first official appearance at WYD on a boat going down a central river of Sydney. Please stay tuned for more updates. Thank you for your prayers. There is much prayer for vocations from the pilgrims.
-Cynthia
Opening Mass in Sydney
We celebrated the opening Mass for World Youth Day in Sydney yesterday with 140,000 young people attending from around the world. What a beautiful celebration it was! I was particularly moved by the testimonies of young persons who had experienced earlier world youth days in different parts of the world. They explained that their lives changed because of those experiences with the pope and thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Some of them are now happily married with children, some priests, others religious, and all commited Catholics.
Some 2,000 priests helped distribute Holy Communion to the faithful at Mass, while some 400 bishops from diverse parts of the world concelebrated. It was a moving, powerful, spiritual experience – even for a young bishop!
Keep us in your prayers!
–Bishop Cantu
Roughing it
Hello everyone. We safely arrived in Sydney yesterday and after a couple obstacles, the complete San Antonio group is united at a small school named St. Charles. Bishop Cantú has now taken his stay with other bishops from around the world. Though we have faced a couple of obstacles we have reminded ourselves that we are pilgrims, not tourists.
In regards to the title of this blog, we are somewhat roughing it right now. The San Antonio group which consists of about 95 pilgrims plus some pilgrims from Australia, India and Italy are also staying in the same Catholic school that we will reside in for the remainder of the week. In total there are 150 of us sleeping on the gym floor or in class rooms. The news that came most shocking to the pilgrims is that there are only 3 showers for all 150 of us. The school we are staying at found out that we were staying there only 4 days ago and due to the fact that they did not have showers and in order to better accomidate us, they built showers in their recreation area for us. We are very grateful and realize that we may not be able to take a shower every day and if we do have a chance to take a shower it will be limited to about 3 minutes, but everything is good.
Festivals are happening around Sydney and some of the group will be visiting the local zoo today. We will celebrate the opening Mass for WYD this evening which we are very excited about. Please continue to pray for us as we continue on this spiritual journey to become closer to God.
Thank you for your wonderful comments. Please continue to read as we embark on more adventures.
-Cynthia
Arrival of Bishops
Bishops from throughout the world are arriving in Sydney. I had breakfast this morning with a bishop from Central Africa (Gabon). I have also run into Bishop Tamayo of Laredo and Bishop Zurek of Amarillo. We will be journeying to the Mass site this afternoon for an opening liturgy with all the pilgrims. After the Mass we will have time to visit with the young people at an informal dinner.
We continue to pray for everyone back home. Keep us in your prayers!
–Bishop Cantu
Arrival in Sydney
The 19 pilgrims traveling with me arrived this morning in Sydney. We patiently waited in the airport while the travel agency picked us up. We sat on the floor of the airport and enjoyed a McDonald’s lunch. (I had a salad! 
All the pilgrims from San Antonio will now be together. They will be housed at a primary school not far from the center of Sydney. There are a host of activities for the pilgrims, starting tomorrow, including concerts, catecheses (given by bishops), thematic talks by various Catholic speakers, etc. So our pilgrims will have plenty of opportunities for learning, growth, and inspiritation.
Keep us in your prayers, that this might be truly a time of grace for our young pilgrims from San Antonio!
By the way, the weather is spectacular in Sydney! Thank goodness.
–Bishop Cantu
Final step of the Pilgrimage.
We are about to experience the final step in our pilgrimage where all pilgrims unite in Sydney. Time is scarce and I finally have a chance to blog now that it is 2:15 AM (Monday). Our flight leaves around 10:20 AM to Sydney and we are very excited, but also sad to leave another set of host families. Today was another busy day. Among the events that took place, we were able to watch as our Holy Father’s arrival to Australia was televised.
We also celebrated our final Mass in Melbourne and said our farewells as we make our way to Sydney. Below is a picture of one of the San Antonio groups along with youth from Blessed Mary MacKillop parish who will also be attending World Youth Day.
We have heard that the final group from San Antonio has successfully arrived to Sydney which is great. Thank you again for all of your prayers and comments. Please spread the word about this blog and also watch out for coverage of WYD in future issues of Today’s Catholic Newspaper and also on CTSA.
-Cynthia
Auckland International Airport
5:31 a.m. We had an early start this morning, leaving the parish at 2:15 a.m. and arriving at the airport at 3:15. We made through security and now we are awaiting the posting of our boarding gate. We leave for Melbourne at 6:15 a.m.
We had a beautiful and emotional farewell Mass last night at St. Anthony’s Parish in Waiuku. This was after an eventful day, full of physical activity. We began with a service project, bagging chopped wood for the Lions Club. (The Lions Club sells the bagged fire wood to provide funds for youth activities in the community.) We bagged, sealed, and stacked some 500 bags of fire wood in the morning. The Lions then treated us to a barbecue lunch. We then made our way to a beautiful black sand beach. It was too cold to venture into the water, so we settled on playing American football. It was funny watching the Kiwis (New Zealand natives) trying to play American football. Nonetheless, we had great fun. I joined one of the teams in order to even out the numbers. I told the quarterback to give me the ball, since I was sure no one would tackle me. Wrong! Good thing it was black sand.
–Bishop Cantu
Days in Melbourne
Our stay in Melbourne has been wonderful, if quite frigid. It has been cold and windy. The commissioning Mass at the Telstra Dome with Archbishop Dennis Hart as main celebrant and homilist was impressive. There were some 30 bishops, and three cardinals, and about 300 priests concelebrating. About 25,000 young people were in attendance.
Saturday morning we took a pilgrimage on foot throught the city of Melbourne, visiting several churches, and ending at the Cathedral of St. Patrick. The catedral is an impressive and inspiring structure. There were several activities for the pilgrims all over the city — conferences, rallies, concerts, prayer groups. The city has truly been flooded by the spirit of World Youth Day. Some of our pilgrims took the opportunity in the afternoon to attend an Australian football game. The spent half the time cheering, and the other half trying to figure out the rules and what was happening.
This afternoon (Sunday) we will celebrate a Holy Hour with private confessions available and then I will celebrate a Mass for the our pilgrims as well as those from our host parishes, Blessed Mary MacKillop and St. Paul.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Sydney. They tell us it will be warmer in Sydney: this may be surprising for a Texan, but I welcome some warmth. We watched the arrival of Pope Benedict on TV this afternoon. Have to go now to hear confessions and pray. We’ll pray for you all. Keep us in your prayers!
Bishop Cantu
