At the close of the Holy Year of Redemption on 22 April 1984, then Pope (soon saint) John Paul II, entrusted the large wooden cross used during the Jubilee Year to representatives of the world’s youth with the words: ‘My dear young people, at the conclusion of the Holy Year, I entrust to you the sign of this Jubilee Year: the Cross of Christ! Carry it throughout the world as a symbol of Christ's love for humanity, and announce to everyone that only in the death and resurrection of Christ can we find salvation and redemption’. Almost thirty years later, with typical exuberance and vigor, the young are still carrying that cross across the world, and how!

In December of the following year, the first UN-declared ‘International Youth Year’, Pope John Paul II announced the institution of World Youth Day (WYD), a coming together of the world’s young adults to celebrate their Catholic Faith. WYD was to be celebrated annually at the diocesan level on Palm Sunday in Rome and at week-long events in different countries every two to three years .

‘I will pour out my spirit and my blessings on your children. They will thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank.’ 

By Bev Trach

Bev Trach is a Scarboro Lay Missionary working in Brazil. This article first appeared in the November 2009 Newsletter of the Scarboro Missionaries whose headquarters are in Scarborough, Ontario, to the immediate east of Toronto. Monsignor John Mary Fraser, a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto, founded the Scarboro Missionaries in 1918. Some years earlier Fr Edward Galvin, who was to become one of the founders of the Columbans, traveled to China with Father Fraser. A talk that the Canadian priest gave in St Patrick’s National Seminary, Ireland, stirred the interest of a young professor there, Fr John Blowick, who became the other co-founder of the Columbans. Father Fraser was interned in the Philippines during World War II.

An Interview With ‘Henrique Of The Trinity’. His Cloth Shoulder Bag Contains All His Worldly Possessions: A Bible, A Crucifix, An Icon Of The Trinity And A Towel.

Q. Can you tell our readers how you arrived at this special vocation in the Church?

A. I was born in France and arrived in Brazil in 1987. I began to live in one of the large, very poor favelas of São Paulo. I spent two years living there, getting to know the situation in Brazil, living in a small wooden shack, the same kind of shack that everybody else lived in all over that area. I had come to Brazil to share in the life of the most marginalized people and to try and lead a life of contemplative prayer in that setting. I did not go to the favela to help resolve the huge problems of the people there, I just wanted to work on a person to person level. I spent two years there and they were happy years, but deep down I somehow felt called to something deeper, a greater simplicity of lifestyle.

By Sister Mariana Reyes HGS

Sister Mariana came to the Philippines in 2000. She is a member of the Hermanas Guadalupanas de la Salle founded in Mexico in 1946 by Brother Juan Fromental Coyroche, a De La Salle Brother from France. The Sisters follow the charism of St John Baptist De La Salle and are involved in the promotion of Christian Education. Their spirituality in the service of God inspires them to look to Our Lady of Guadalupe in her role as evangelizer of the people they serve. They arrived in the Philippines in 1984. Other countries in which they work include Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Madagascar, Peru and Thailand.