Our People

BXVI’s WYD Apostles

Address to
PJ Gallagher’s Irish Pub, Parramatta

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
18/8/2008

What a week!

"Incredible, amazing, staggering, phenomenal, overwhelming": that’s how one American bishop described it.[1]  His 40 pilgrims from Baker, Oregon, were amongst 110,000 registered international pilgrims from 170 nations, who joined 113,000 registered locals and who-knows-how-many thousands of unregistered pilgrims for the week of World Youth Day 2008 festivities here in Sydney.

They were together with half a million others who came out for His Holiness’ spectacular arrival on the harbour, the welcome harbourside ceremony at Barangaroo and then through the streets of the CBD. They attended catechesis daily at one of the 235 locations around Sydney, presumably in English, though there were 29 languages to choose from. They also took part in some of the 450 Youth Festival activities, joined the 2,500 pilgrims who passed through the Vocations Expo every hour, and went to Confession at one of the Reconciliation Centres. At the Cathedral they consecrated themselves to Our Lady of the Southern Cross and prayed at the temporary tomb of Pier Giorgio Frassati, the inspiring pilgrim beatus from Turin. They also learnt about our local beata, Mother Mary MacKillop of the Cross and perhaps visited her shrine in North Sydney. They encountered Australia’s Indigenous people and culture at many of the events. They joined 150,000 worshippers at the Opening Mass at Barangaroo, witnessed perhaps the most moving rendition of the Stations of the Cross they will see in their lives, heard testimonies from seven pilgrims and the Successor of Peter at the Saturday night Vigil and then knelt in enthralled silence before our Eucharistic Lord. On the Sunday our Oregonian pilgrims were part of a congregation of 400,000 or so, as well as 4,000 priests, 420 bishops, 200 musicians and choristers, 26 cardinals, 24 confirmation candidates and one very happy Pope who celebrated an awesome Mass and preached beautifully to us at Southern Cross Precinct.

These same pilgrims helped consume the 3.6 million pilgrim meals, including 215,000 meat pies, 360,000 lamingtons and 100,000 litres of milk! If and when they slept, it may have been with the 100,000 pilgrims bedded down in 400 schools and parish halls or with the 12,000 in Sydney Olympic Park, or amongst the 40,000 in HomeStay. And they would have been given directions and otherwise assisted by some of our 8,000 volunteers, many of whom are in this room.

All for what?

Was it all worth it? What will it mean for us, the WYD-SYD generation? What will it mean for our Church and community, say twenty years from now, that you were at WYD08? It would be naïve to imagine it affected everyone, or very deeply, or even for the better. Some will barely have noticed it happened. Some had fun but will return to normal. Some were stubbornly resistant from the start: they were convinced no-one would come, that it would cost the earth and all for nothing, that transport, hospitals and the sky would all fall in, that the only really sacred thing - the races - would be disrupted…[2]  We don’t hear much of that talk anymore. The facts of WYD speak for themselves.

Though the media tide eventually turned, a few continued their hostile campaign even through WYD week. The “NoToPope” coalition brought together several dozen demonstrators according to the Police estimates, or thousands according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Amid the protests against the gathering of Christians in Australia this week,” Bryan Patterson wrote, “there was delicious irony in a group of glamour lesbians. The lesbians believe the world was created by an alien master race 25,000 years ago, slamming the Catholic Church for being out of touch. Perhaps it was always going to be a bizarre week. The lesbians from the Raelian cult - which claims to have cloned babies despite scientific warnings of possible birth defects and deformities - said they were unhappy because of the Catholic ban on condom use. They were also unhappy because the Pope was here but their leader, a former racing car driver, had been denied a visa to enter Australia.”[3]

Very few ordinary people, I suspect, were unhappy about sharing their city with young people full of faith and the world’s greatest religious leader, and only the hardest of heart remained hostile as the week wore on. Some were surprised by their own positive reaction. One visiting bishop wrote to me about the number of Australians he met “on the street, at hotels, or on the railway. The people I encountered, though not people of faith, were filled with wonder, curiosity and joy at how well the young people behaved and their enthusiasm for Jesus Christ. A couple of them said it really raised deep questions for them, that they know they will now have to reflect on. This is a great working of the Holy Spirit!”[4]

Self-styled ‘urban princess’ Andrea Burns wrote breathlessly in her column that there was a hot new star in town. "This guy eclipses the popularity of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles… That’s right, Joe Rat-Z, the Papal C, was in town for one week only and the kids were going nuts for him… People really love this guy… Despite his age, his funny red shoes and that skill-tester they call the Pope Mobile, Joseph Ratzinger is like totally cool. Could it be that we are wrong about Gen Y?” she wondered. “Are they not the soulless, video-game-playing, pre-marital-sex-having, carefree generation who rather surf for porn than waves? Maybe Gen Y are looking for something to believe in too… The future’s not so bleak and I think the kids proved there is still hope, faith and love out there." [5]

Stories to be told

There are thousands of stories to be told of how WYD08 affected ordinary people.[6]  A Muslim cab driver said he had never seen so many people in Australia gather for anything but sport, and he was so happy it was for God! The Police Commissioner told us that the crime rate fell significantly in Sydney during WYD week and that crowd control usually required no more than a piece of string and a polite request to stay behind it. Of course there were still some crimes: a gang robbed a young Chilean named Carlos of all his things. Yet when the gang-leader saw his rosary beads, he asked, “Are you a pilgrim?” When our visitor said yes, the leader ordered the gang to return all his belongings!

Office-workers still talk about the tangible joy that was in the city streets. One volunteer wrote to the paper: “The mood in Sydney is so uplifting… There is a wonderful vibe everywhere you go. I noticed the change of atmosphere immediately the pilgrims started arriving.”[7]  Policemen and women told me that for the first time in their working lives, crowds of young people thanked them and told them they loved them. Drivers of trains and buses took on extra shifts and drove out of their way in order to get pilgrims to and fro and reported really enjoying their work for a week.[8]  A taxi-driver noticed a lost pilgrim in Dural and drove her free of charge back to her accommodation - in Mosman.

People were touched, often in unexpected ways. One woman told us she was surprised to find that in such large crowds God could move her individually and very personally. Nuns told me that two Chinese students, who knew practically nothing about Christianity, followed them to the Opening Mass; the sisters gave a crash catechism course and the Chinese youths were crying by the time of the consecration. A young woman who addressed the Holy Father at his meeting with disadvantaged youth - mostly struggling with drugs, homelessness, alienation - heard the Vicar of Christ tell her how proud he was of her. Another young woman, Samantha, had her boyfriend, Joseph, kneel before her on the Pilgrim Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and ask for her hand in marriage: she accepted. Young seminarians and religious have spoken about how they were confirmed in their vocation by the Pope’s address to them at the Mass of Dedication of the new cathedral altar. Girls at state high schools now say ‘Catholic is the new cool’. One bishop wrote that his young people “left Sydney as the same people who had arrived and yet they were not the same. Their lives have been touched in a very graced manner and I suspect that all of them will somehow be different and live differently.”[9] 

I’ve now had communications from bishops, priests, pastoral leaders and pilgrims from all over world about how it was “the best WYD ever”; how they there encountered Jesus Christ, his Holy Spirit and his Church; how it deepened their faith and fired up their idealism; how it developed their love for the Holy Father, the Stations of Cross, the Mass and Confession; how impressed they were by the support we had from government, public service agencies and the wider community; how much they loved the music; how particular activities taught them new things or changed the way they will pray or act; how their sense of the universality of the Church has been expanded; how WYD helped them discern their vocation and changed their lives…[10]  I hope that includes all of you: yet-to-be Catholics, lukewarm Catholics and full-on Catholics - we all need to be open to the Holy Spirit’s promptings and to Him inspiring and maybe changing what you think and feel and do.

Hearts touched

It wasn’t only pilgrims who experienced this change of heart. The hotel and hospitality industry, who were afraid our HomeStay and SchoolStay programmes had stolen all their business, have now reported that they did better than expected and they enjoyed it.[11]  The Sydney Chamber of Commerce and Industry invited WYD critics to “gorge themselves on humble pie” after the event generated $231 million in economic activity for the city.[12]  A horse-trainer wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he was converted from being an enemy of WYD at Randwick to being a full-on supporter.[13]  Even the Sydney Morning Herald found place for the crucifixion on page one![14]

Sydneysiders agreed. The Telegraph reports that “It could have been the tambourines, the happy pilgrims or even the lamington-munching nuns. Whatever it was - its now official: Sydney loved World Youth Day. After grumbling before the event, most Sydneysiders changed their tune, thinking it was great for Sydney. A Galaxy [opinion] poll found 71% of respondents thought the mass of pilgrims in town for the week’s events was a good thing… [and] 81% of residents were glad thousands of young people enjoyed themselves without being a nuisance.”[15]  Those polled weren’t given the option of saying “incredible, amazing, staggering, phenomenal, overwhelming” like the American bishop, but I guess many would have ticked those boxes too. “Pope Benedict’s presence even caught the attention of non-Catholics,” the newspaper observed. “More than 400,000 people went to the Pope’s last Mass at Randwick… the largest religious gathering” in our history. In fact it was the largest gathering in one place for anything in our history.[16]  And when you add in the international TV audience of 500 million, the estimated internet audience of another 500m, the millions more reached via the 2,000 accredited journalists at WYD, and the thousands joining our social networking site Xt3.com, that’s a lot of people!

Everywhere those people have talked about the wonderful spirit that was here for the week - the Spirit of God, the spirit of youth, the spirit of friendship - and how they wished it wouldn’t end. So many commented on how it confirmed their faith but also their confidence: that they no longer feel so alone in their prayer and idealism, that they now know there are millions of young people, just like them, with a passion for God and the things of God, who want to build a better Church and a better world. A rough-as-nails workman at the Cathedral suggested to His Eminence this was so good we should do it every month! Even our tough-as-nails Cardinal blanched briefly at that thought…

The Pope himself was also deeply affected. Before he left His Holiness described WYD in Sydney as “wonderful” and since returning home he has said he can’t get it out of his head! The “extraordinary” images of “the youthful face of the Church” are, he says, still deeply impressed “on my mind and in my heart… like a multicoloured mosaic, formed by young men and women from every part of the globe, all gathered together in the one faith in Jesus Christ.”[17]  He described WYD08 as “a new Pentecost, from which the mission of the young people, called to be apostles to their contemporaries, was relaunched.” Now there’s a mission for you! You’ve been relaunched! Are you going to make the Holy Father proud?

BXVI’s call to be apostles

Pope Benedict’s opening theme - that your generation are called to be the new apostles - ran right through his WYD messages and I exhort you to reread, study and savour them in prayer. At his welcome at Barangaroo the Holy Father recalled that “Almost two thousand years ago, the Apostles, gathered in the upper room together with Mary and some faithful women, were filled with the Holy Spirit. At that extraordinary moment, which gave birth to the Church, the confusion and fear that had gripped Christ’s disciples were transformed into a vigorous conviction and sense of purpose. They felt impelled to speak of their encounter with the risen Jesus whom they had come to call affectionately, the Lord.”[18]  He noted that they were, in many ways, ordinary blokes. “Yet, when empowered by the Holy Spirit, they were transfixed by the truth of Christ’s Gospel and inspired to proclaim it fearlessly… In obedience to Christ’s own command, they set forth, bearing witness to the greatest story ever told: that God has become one of us, that the divine has entered human history in order to transform it, and that we are called to immerse ourselves in Christ’s saving love which triumphs over evil and death.”[19]

The call to be BWAs (= Benedict’s WYD Apostles) - much better letters to have after your name than just a BA! - was made by the Holy Father not just in the abstract, but to particular, real people, to you. He noted that “Among yourselves there is a readiness to take up the plentiful opportunities offered to you. Some of you excel in studies, sport, music, or dance and drama, others of you have a keen sense of social justice and ethics, and many of you take up service and voluntary work.”[20]  Whatever your particular temperament, gifts, experiences, aspirations, the Vicar of Christ calls you to “Come, follow me!” Are you ready and willing to be Christ’s apostles in the 21st century? If so, you really will, by Christ’s saving love, triumph over evil and death!

Apostles to the natural and human environment

The call to be Post WYD apostles is made to particular, real people; it is also made to a particular, real context. The Pope noted the wonders of the natural and the human environments in which we live. Yet he recognized that not all is cool. “In our personal lives and in our communities, we can encounter hostility.” Fair enough: Christ did, his apostles did, the holy women did, and most of those guys were young people. Though it might no longer be social death to admit to being Catholic after WYD, there will still be opposition. It will be exciting but not always be easy. “We can encounter a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been created. Examples abound, as you yourselves know: alcohol, drug abuse, violence and sexual degradation, often presented through television and the internet as entertainment…”. There is “something sinister,” he observes, in the way relativism separates freedom and tolerance from truth and moral absolutes. This leads “not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair.”[21]

It is to that beautiful yet confused world that you are sent as apostles. Reflecting on the dignity of every human being as an image of God, you must be especially concerned for God’s little ones: the poor, elderly, refugees, victims and voiceless. “How can it be,” the Pope asks, that in societies with so many advantages as ours, still “domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space - the womb - has become a place of unutterable violence?”[22]  But such ugliness on the moral landscape is no cause for despair, Benedict teaches us, for deep down everyone craves for more and better. “Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion.”[23]  Christ and his Vicar are sending you as apostles to our natural and human world; that world is hungry for you.

What must we do, to be good BWAs? The Pope suggested that we must look, listen and contemplate before we act. “Dear young people... Be watchful! Listen! Through the dissonance and division of our world, can you hear the concordant voice of humanity? From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity. Who satisfies that essential human yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be built up, to be led to truth? The Holy Spirit!”[24] 

That same Holy Spirit doesn’t just give us bursts of energy and inspiration: He shapes and matures us in the process. “Let your faith mature through your studies, work, sport, music and art,” said the Holy Father. “Let it be sustained by prayer and nurtured by the sacraments, and thus be a source of inspiration and help to those around you.”[25]  Before WYD a young German friend wrote to me in imperfect English to encourage me. Trying to translate the German Heilege Messe, Holy Mass, she wrote: “Dear Mr Fisher, You are organising the biggest holy mess in the world.” Thanks be to God, Mr Fisher’s Holy Mess proved to be the Holy Father’s sublime Holy Mass. A Mass many will remember as the greatest of their lives. A Mass they will bring with them to every Mass they attend hereafter, recalling they are part of something bigger than their local school or parish or chaplaincy or group. A Mass of humanity, young humanity, stretching across time and space. A Mass of divinity, the body of Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father in glory and present on the altar and on our tongues at every Mass. You are part of every Holy Mass since that first Last Supper we saw re-enacted in front of St Mary’s Cathedral. The sacraments are the place we return to, time and again, to be recharged by the Holy Spirit.

Go: the WYD Mass is ended

You didn’t see it reported, but there was a major security breach during WYD. Not by a terrorist, not by the Chaser, not even by an over-enthusiastic young pilgrim, but by an elderly nun who was determined to see the Holy Father. With a stash of food and water she hid herself for two days in a cupboard in a church she had heard the Pope was to visit. The police sniffer dogs found her and she was permitted to view proceedings from the other side of the keyhole!

Apostles are never just passive, hidden observers. You have to be on the other side of the keyhole, in the Church and the world. Reflecting on the tsunami of faith and joy he had experienced in Sydney, one bishop said he’d never imagined that such faith and joy could spill out into the streets of a major Australian city. Yet that is exactly what happened. “In that week-long moment the Church literally moved from the safe confines of the Parish Church on Sunday morning and went to the streets of Sydney. Having heard, as if for the first time, ‘The Mass is ended, go in peace,’ these pilgrims did go, they went to the streets of Sydney and there proclaimed that Jesus is Lord. It was a kind of new Pentecost,” he said. “Like the first apostles… the young people at Sydney, having had the Spirit stirred up within them… took the streets and they captured the hearts of the people of Sydney in a most amazing fashion.”[26] 

So when the priest says at Mass, when the Pope’s deacon said at Randwick, ‘The Mass is ended, go in peace’ he doesn’t mean: OK, its over, you’re free at last, get out of here. No, he means: it ain’t over, it’s just begun: go out to those streets and change them: bring ’em Pentecost! When you leave the church, you don’t leave the Church. You go outside in order “to exercise the Spirit’s gifts amidst the ups and downs of your daily life.”[27]  Instead of being a pew potato, you must be an ever more active and joyful participant in the life of the Church - “in parishes and ecclesial movements, in religious education classes, in university chaplaincies and other Catholic organizations.”[28] 

The Church is already planning various Post-WYD activities including:

• Activ8 Mission: pastoral materials for parishes, chaplaincies and schools, with many suggestions on local post-WYD activities
• Xt3.com the WYD social networking and discussion site which is a new media adventure for the Church in Australia
• wide distribution of web, DVD and print versions of all the WYD homilies, messages and images, with discussion points and encouragement to contemplate and share
• the new Reconnect and Rewired programmes of the National Office for Evangelisation of the Bishops to re-engage those who have been away from the Church
• a national Youth Congress to be held in November under the auspices of the Bishops’ Commission for Pastoral Life to hear from youth leaders around the country what they would like to see after WYD
• a new Archdiocese of Sydney Benedict XVI Retreat Centre at Grose Vale with a special focus on retreats and formation experiences for young people
• an intensive Youth Leaders Formation Programme from 25 November to 20 December.

That's a few Post-WYD projects for starters. But we must be ready for the Holy Spirit to inspire young people such as yourselves to take the initiative with ideas we oldies haven’t thought of but are ready to support. You can all begin in simple ways. It might be committing to Mass every Sunday or even an extra Mass during the week. It might be participating more fully in the parish or chaplaincy you are already part of. It might be pledging to spending a few minutes a day in prayer or helping out the poor and disadvantaged who are on our streets or in our nursing homes. It might be taking a CCD class to share your faith with those younger than yourself. It might simply be wearing your faith more on your sleeve - being proud of your Catholic faith and willing to declare it at the right time and place.

I look forward to hearing from you tonight what each of you is thinking of doing by way of witness to the world and renewal for the Church after WYD. It is flattering to be invited to be BWAs: now be ready to do what apostles do! Be fearless, like those Chinese kids who got drawn to Mass and tears at Barangaroo, like those bus drivers going the extra mile for the pilgrims, like that nun waiting for Christ’s vicar to come, like the first Pentecosted apostles, preaching to all the world. Be ready to step outside your comfort zone, to say the God-word in class, amongst your peers, on the streets.

Conclusion

Let me leave the last words of my formal talk to our Holy Father. In his wonderful homily for the final Mass, he posed a series of questions to you: “Dear young people, What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations? Are you living your lives in a way that opens up space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the power which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you? What difference will you make?

"The power of the Holy Spirit points us to the future, to the coming of God's Kingdom. Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith's rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished - not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends," dear BWAs, "the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity."[29]  Amen!

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1. Bishop Robert Vasa, “World Youth Day: Amazing, incredible, staggering,” Catholic Sentinel 1 August 2008, www.sentinel.org/node/9289
2. Critiquing the hostility of some sections of the media see: “An atheist on World Youth Day: the gospel according to Tele editor David Penberthy,” Mediaweek 4 August 2008, 3; Miranda Devine, “Beauty personified on our streets,” Sydney Morning Herald 24 July 2008, 13; Geoff Hinds, “Enjoy youthful joy,” Sun Herald 20 July 2008, 56; “Onward atheist, greenie soldiers, marching as to war: The Sydney Morning Herald continues its unabashed crusade against the Catholic hierarchy in a weekend editorial,” The Australian 14 July 2008, 9; “Religion and its critics bring on fuming and fulminating,” Sydney Morning Herald 14 July 2008, 12; Gerard Henderson, “The sorry sport of Pope bashing,” Sydney Morning Herald 15 July 2008; Paul Stenhouse, “Medai flagships that are out of their depth: A new generation of old-fashioned bigotry,” Catholic Weekly 17 August 2008, 13.
3. Bryan Patterson, “Youth Day celebrates humanity,” Sunday Herald Sun 20 July 2008, 86.
4. Letter from Bishop Samuel Aquila, Bishop of Fargo, North Dakota.
5. Andrea Burns, “Living on a prayer, rock star Pope is a hit with Gen Y,” Sunday Herald Sun 20 July 2008, 109; cf. “Gen Y joins god squad,” Sunday Tasmanian 3 August 2008, 9.
6. e.g. “Blown away by World Youth Day,” Murray Pioneer 15 August 2008, 12; “Michael’s long walk an adventure,” Northern Miner (Charters Towers QLD), 8 August 2008, 6; “WYD celebrations changed our lives,” Central Queensland News 8 August 2008, 7; “Changed forever by World Youth Day,” by Selian Harris, Catholic Leader 3 August 2008, 20; “World event will stay with girls forever,” by Lynn Pinkerton, Great Lakes Advocate 30 July 2008, 6; “Faith not such a bad thing,” MX Melbourne 30 July 2008, 14; “WYD changes college students,” Toowoomba Chronicle 29 July 2008, 21; “400,000 reasons to welcome tomorrow,” by Matthew MacLean, Newcastle Herald 28 July 2008, 9.
7. Christine Beham, “Such a good time being had by all,” Daily Telegraph 19 July 2008, 5.
8. See Andrew Soulis, “Finding love and warmth on my late-night bus shift,” Daily Telegraph 21 July 2008, 19.
9. Vasa, “World Youth Day: Amazing, incredible, staggering”.
10. See also Devine, “Beauty personified on our streets”.
11. Travel Blackboard 29 July 2008, www.etravelblackboard.com/index.asp?id=80339.
12. “$231m mojo maker?,” by Daniel Emerson, Sudney Morning Herald 21 July 2008.
13. Brent Zerafa, “Sceptical trainer Kevin Moses a World youth Day convert,” Daily Telegraph 22 July 2008.
14. Linda Morris, “One good Friday, Sydney gave its heart to Jesus Christ,” Sydney Morning Herald 19 July 2008, 1; cf. “A tsunami of faith and joy,” by Linda Morris and Jano Gibson, Sydney Morning Herald 21 July 2008.
15. Brooke Newstead and Kate Sikora, “Galaxy poll shows Sydney fell in love with World Youth Day,” Daily Telegraph 24 July 2008; cf. Editorial, “Happiness warms the chilliest cynics,” Daily Telegraph 16 July 2008, 24.
16. Newstead & Sikora, “Galaxy poll shows Sydney fell in love with World Youth Day”.
17. Benedict XVI, Angelus at Castel Gandolfo 27 July 2008.
18. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008, citing Acts 1:14; 2:4.
19. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008.
20. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008.
21. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008.
22. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008.
23. Benedict XVI, Address for Arrival at Barangaroo 17 July 2008.
24. Benedict XVI, Address at Evening Vigil 20 July 2008.
25. Benedict XVI, Address at Evening Vigil 20 July 2008. He continues: “In the end, life is not about accumulation. It is much more than success. To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God’s love. In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you too can transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts! Let wisdom, courage, awe and reverence be the marks of greatness!”
26. Vasa, “World Youth Day: Amazing, incredible, staggering”.
27. Benedict XVI, Address at Evening Vigil 20 July 2008. He continues: “In the end, life is not about accumulation. It is much more than success. To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God’s love. In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you too can transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts! Let wisdom, courage, awe and reverence be the marks of greatness!”
28. Benedict XVI, Address at Evening Vigil 20 July 2008.
29. Benedict XVI, Homily at the Final Mass 21 July 2008.