World Youth Day is underway!
Over a million youth and young adults, along with adults in all states of life -lay, religious, and clergy, including some 800 bishops, including archbishops and Cardinals from The Vatican and around the world- have descended upon Madrid and gathered today with the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI for their first of several encounters with him during this most glorious week.
The excitement is palpable! Hundreds of videos, pictures, TV shows and radio shows, websites, blogs, Facebook entries, and tweets are inundating new and old media outlets, filling us with the excitement felt by those on the ground – even if we are a world away, in a different time zone, and speak little or no Spanish at all! (That, of course, is not my case, and I am enjoying thoroughly the coverage of ETWN en español on Catholic Television of San Antonio – which you can also enjoy at www.ewtn.com – as well as through www.aciprensa.com and other Spanish media.)
Enjoy this historic visit. Yes, every WYD is a historic event, a life-giving and a life-changing event for each and every pilgrim as well as for the host country and the dioceses therein. The past 25 WYDs have produced abundant and lasting fruit, from vocations to the priesthood and various forms of consecrated life, to a more active participation in ecclesial life and apostolic endeavors, as well as the fruit of a strengthening of communion between the various local churches (dioceses) there represented, as their bishops and faithful return energized by the presence and message of the Pope -any pope!- and by the living Presence and Message of God: Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, the only Savior of the world, our Friend and our Brother.
It can be a life-giving experience for you too. So, again I say: enjoy this historic visit through one or more media outlet of your choice!
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/wyd2011/
http://www.aciprensa.com/jmj2011/
iEvangelize 