Our People

Holy Father’s Farewell to Volunteers

Hyde Park

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
21/7/2008

The Holy Father is arriving…

Holy Father, our beloved “Papa Benedetto”, it is with great joy that I present to you the World Youth Day volunteers. They include some who have worked full-time for WYD for a year now; others who took part over the last few weeks; some from our parishes, religious orders and ecclesial communities; others are from overseas or from the general Australian community; and many also from government departments and from the fire and ambulance brigades. This WYD has brought together every sector of the community, in this wonderful act of kerygma, leitourgia and diakonia, of sacred service, of God, his Church and the young people who are the hope of the Church and the world. Without their generosity and hospitality WYD08 could not have happened; with their help, it not only happened, was an extraordinary explosion of fait hand joy for our city and our nation.

We would like, Holy Father, to pray with you the prayer that we have prayed daily ever since that wonderful day at Marienfeld when you announced that Sydney would be the next host of WYD… [prayer]

Holy Father, after you and your collaborators in Rome, it has been the local leader of the Church in Sydney, His Eminence Cardinal Pell, who has been our leader and inspiration at every stage of the bidding, planning, preparation and execution of this WYD. He is a big man, Your Holiness, with a big heart and big dreams to match. This week past he has brought one of those dreams to realisation and in the process drawn us all with him to Christ. I ask him to address us… [Cardinal speaks; he invites Holy Father to address and bless us]

Thank-you Holy Father. It is with great joy that we have had you in our home and in our hearts in this week past. We thank you for your generosity. For many of us this will be the greatest activity for which we have worked in our lives and we are profoundly grateful that you made this possible for us. We pledge our continuing prayers for you: ad multos annos as successor of St Peter and a humble servant in the vineyard of the Lord. And as our farewell to you we want to sing to you one last time the theme song of World Youth Day 2008…