Not a ‘Camelot’ but a ‘Magnificat’
"We have been happy together in the light we have shared".
As I remember vividly the great event of World Youth Day (WYD) 2002
and allow it to take on its true and authentic dimensions, one image
seems to dominate: the rather violent and ferocious wind and storm that
rocked Downsview Park on Sunday morning, 28 July 2002. It was a
frightening storm that blew in from the west, nearly preventing the
papal helicopter from taking off from Morrow Park.
The storm ripped off part of the roof of the largest stage ever
constructed in North America and soaked the more than 850,000 young
people encamped on a former military base and runway. It drenched over
600 Bishops and Cardinals and even soaked the Pope as we brought him out
on stage.
As four young people led the Pope into the full view of the crowd —
the winds were then at gale force — it
was the only moment during the entire event when I was somewhat
terrified, Bishops had to hang on to their air-borne mitres. Everything
on stage was set to flight —
books, music, altar cloths, chairs.
Surrounded by the police chiefs of what seemed to be all of Canada, I
uttered some silent prayers, begging God to get us through this last,
final challenge and obstacle. For me and for many, this was the wind of
Pentecost that we hear about in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 2.
And yet, in the midst of this violent storm, the nations of the earth
— at least 172 of them huddled
together on that field —
understood one another as they gathered around Peter on that July
morning. This was the wind that had led the WYD Cross from sea to sea to
sea, across Canada — "a mari
usque ad mare". And now on the shores of Lake Ontario, I believe
the Church was born again in Canada.
More than anything it was the wind and the trees that served as
privileged witnesses of those young pilgrims who graced our land and our
Church last summer. The trees of University Avenue extended their
branches in a loving, protective embrace over half a million people on
that unforgettable Friday night, 26 July 2002, as Jesus and his friends
made their final walk up this majestic boulevard in the incredibly
moving Via Crucis, watched by over 1 billion people around the world.
One of the amazing things that happened last summer was that the
media of the world — over 4,000 of
them — came to Toronto and climbed
our trees to peer down onto this incredible story unfolding before them.
The image that remains engraved in my mind from all of that frenetic
activity is the story of Zaccheus. The media climbed high in the trees
and watched. And as Jesus and his hundreds of thousands of young
disciples passed, one by one the skeptical and the curious climbed down
from the branches and became part of the great pilgrimage.
Many accredited journalists to the event were criticized by their
more skeptical colleagues: "You went overboard, you crossed over,
you lost professional objectivity and became part of the story".
They came to see the Pope; they ended up meeting Jesus.
They wept, they were moved, they made new friends. Previous theories
of a young faithless, godless generation were dashed and new ones
were formulated.
In journalism, one may call this a loss of objectivity. In our
business of the Church, we call it evangelization, transformation and
conversion. They simply wanted to touch what they had heard and seen
with their own eyes. And they did.
We may choose to speak of WYD as a past event that brightened the
shadows and monotony of our lives at one shining moment in history in
2002. Against a world background of terror and fear, economic collapse
and ecclesial scandals, World Youth Day presented an alternative vision
of compelling beauty. Some have even called those golden days of July
2002 a "Camelot" moment. That is one way to consider the WYD:
fading memories of an extraordinary moment in Canadian history.
There is, however, another way: the Gospel way. The Gospel story is
not about "Camelot" but about "Magnificat",
constantly inviting Christians to take up Mary's hymn of praise and
thanksgiving at the ways that Almighty God breaks through human history
here and now.
This way is not only nourished by memories, however good and
beautiful they may be. The resurrection of Jesus is not a memory of a
distant, past event, but it is Good News that continues to be fulfilled
today, here and now, The Christian story is neither folklore nor
nostalgia, a trip down triumphal church lane. Had the disciples ever
chosen this path, the Gospel message would now be in the British Museum
under glass and not alive and well and pulsating through the veins of
millions of Christians throughout the world.
The souvenirs of WYD 2002 are slowly leaving us, taking up their
rightful place in the realm of memory and history. Those memories must
die just as the grain of wheat must die in order to bear fruit.
What remains is the extraordinary encounter between Jesus and his
young friends, between the young pilgrims and that beloved old man in
white who journeyed from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of Lake
Ontario for a meeting, an encounter, a kairos moment last summer. We are
slowly beginning to understand the jumbled emotions which ebb and flow
from that time and those places and why, when they have vanished, we
shall value the whole World Youth Day experience so intensely and
cherish the brightness it cast upon Toronto, Ontario, and all of Canada
at a moment when we needed to be buoyed up and encouraged to "set
out into the deep".
I pray that the mighty wind of Pentecost may continue to blow
furiously throughout the Church in Canada and especially in this great
Archdiocese of Toronto, and with that wind a roaring blaze sent by God's
restless Spirit. May that wind now blow from sea to sea to sea, bringing
to full life a Church that was reborn on 28 July 2002 at Downsview Park
in the heart of Toronto.
May the tongues of fire that we experienced in no small measure last
July gently alight once again on our heads, and give us the courage to
constantly make room in our Church for young people who are Christ's
guarantee of endless joy and youthfulness.
During the Angelus prayer at Downsview Lands on Sunday,
28 July 2002, the Holy Father summed up beautifully the sentiments of
millions of people who were touched in some way by World Youth Day 2002:
"As we prepare to return home, I say, in the words of Saint
Augustine: 'We have been happy together in the light we have shared. We
have really enjoyed being together. We have really rejoiced. But as we
leave one another, let us not leave Him "'.
Could we desire anything more than these thoughts and words as our
own Magnificat hymn of praise, thanksgiving and promise of action
one year later?
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