ALIVE, BEAUTIFUL AND DESPERATELY NEEDED | KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2023

Author: Sony Thevalakara

Intro: Sony Thevalakara remembers World Youth Day 2002 and shares five lessons it imparted to him.

The Pope is coming to Canada!

This is all I knew about World Youth Day back around 2002. I had never heard of WYD. I knew that Pope John Paul II had come to Denver back in 1993 but never realised it was for this. World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, Canada would be my first experience of this. The theme for it was from Matthew chapter 5, ‘You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.’ The next ten days left a lasting impact on my life. Here are five takeaways from my first WYD experience.

1. Universality of the Church

During one of the Holy Masses we attended during the days of WYD, there was one I vividly remember. It took place in this large hall with several hundred people in attendance from all over the world. When it came time to pray the Our Father, the celebrant asked everyone to recite it in their own language. Next thing I knew, all these hundreds of people began reciting the Our Father in so many different languages. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced. It felt like a glimpse of heaven with all these different people in different tongues praising God Almighty.

One of the biggest takeaways I had from WYD was the universality of the Church. By this I mean how the faith is One, the faith is EVERYWHERE, and the faith is beautiful. There were close to 800,000 people in Toronto for WYD that year. They were not just from America or Canada but from all over the world. All these different people with all these different flags speaking all these different languages; ALL believe in the same faith, this faith that has been passed down since Christ walked this earth. That was just mind-blowing for me. No longer was the faith confined to something we did at my church or something that happened in the local churches

around my house. NO WAY! The faith was everywhere with people from all walks of life trying to grow in it and understand it while getting to know the master of it all, Jesus Christ.

2. Youthful expression of the faith

A lot of times growing up, I felt that there were different parts of the faith that were, well, boring. Many times it seemed faith was something that you practise when you are an adult in an adult type of way. WYD changed my perspective on that very quickly. It was earth shattering for me to see young people jump and dance at a Christian concert like I’ve seen at secular ones, or the excitement by which groups of people would shout at

the top of their lungs from one packed train platform to the other, ‘We love Jesus, yes we do. We love Jesus, how ‘bout you?’ and the other side chiming back the same in a louder voice, or the singing and the dancing that took place on board trains and trolleys, in parks and halls. The faith

seemed alive for the first time in my life and something that could be lived out by young people in the way we live our lives.

3. Young people living out their faith

There are a lot of things you have to do at WYD. One of those things is walking, A LOT! As you walk you meet people from all over the world. In speaking with these young people, you get inspired by how much they struggle with the same struggles we have or have it much worse than we do, yet they still strive to be holy. It serves as encouragement for you to want to keep going on your path of holiness and to never give up. I mean, if a young person who is almost just like you on the other side of the world going through worse can do it, why not you? If they can live out their faith and be the salt and light of the world, why not you?

4. Pope John Paul II

JPII was the only pope I had ever known in my life. I did not know much about him but definitely wanted to see him. That chance came during the welcoming ceremony for the Holy Father. I got a spot next to the fence where he was going to drive by. As he drove by, amidst the shouting and

hoopla, there was this great sense of peace. You could almost feel this cloud of holiness surrounding him. Later on the big screens you could see people crying as he was driving by. I had seen that happening for celebrities like Michael Jackson but never for a religious figure. What was better was that he had called us all together so that we could grow closer to God. What vision he had for the future of young people! Later during the final Mass, he struggled with the wind and with his Parkinsons, having to have the side of his mouth wiped as he could not control the saliva from coming out as he spoke. Even lifting the chalice during the consecration

prayers of the Holy Mass was hard for him. Yet, he showed us such a wonderful witness of how to serve the Lord despite the hardships, how to live as the ‘salt’ and the ‘light’ of Christ in this world despite the hardship.

5. Challenging my faith

The entire experience challenged my faith. There was constantly this question coming up in my head, are you really being the salt and light of the world? I remember attending a concert by Tony Melendez. Tony is an American musician who was born without arms. He learned how to play the guitar with his feet. At the end of his concert in which he was not just singing and praising God but also preaching to us about God’s love, he said something that will forever stay with me. ‘If I, a guy with no arms, can do this, how much MORE can you do?’ His words pierced like a knife. What am I doing with all that the Lord has given me? Later, the Holy Father’s

theme of his message that I took was that we young people are the Church of today and it was time for us to stand up for the faith! Both of these messages challenged me to the core and still continue to do so. Now, 21 years later, although not perfect, I still strive to live out that WYD

experience in my life. To be the ‘salt’ and ‘light’ of the world. But more so, to come to know Him and to serve Him with everything I have. Our faith is a treasure. I once thought it was old and dusty. World Youth Day showed me how it is ALIVE and BEAUTIFUL and how the world desperately needs it.

Sony Thevalakara is a high school history teacher from Chicago, USA. He has been part of the movement since his WYD experience.