MEANWHILE, IN SPAIN...

"READYING EXHIBITIONS AND PILGRIMS' ACCOMMODATIONS, WE ARE PREPARING TO WELCOME THE POPE"
A hundred families who will offer accommodation for the youth, 500 volunteers, an evening vigil… This is how the CL community in Madrid is helping to build the WYD.

BY JOSÉ MIGUEL GARCÍA

Ahundred families who will open their doors to pilgrims; over 200 students serving as ushers; and 300 adults working as volunteers at the exhibitions. There will also be a vigil dedicated to "Beauty: Man's Great Need," and a handbook (50,000 copies), showing the contributions of Christians in the building of Madrid.
The Spanish CL community is not waiting idly by for the WYD, to be held in Madrid August 16th-21st. The theme will be "Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith" (Col 2:7). The community has been at work since September 2010, along with the organizing committee, particularly in the sector of cultural events, volunteer work, and hospitality, to express, along with the other ecclesial realities, the need stressed by Benedict XVI last November, at the Sagrada Familia: "Beauty is man's great need; it is the root from which spring the stem of peace and the fruits of our hope."
The World Youth Days were created by Blessed John Paul II, to establish a dialogue with young people throughout the world. "The main aim of the Days is to restore the faith to its central place in the life of the youth," Wojtyla explained, "so that each one can fix his eyes upon the person of Jesus." And all the WYDs, with the words and the witness of the Pope, were for young people an occasion for taking seriously their own most intimate longings, professing the faith together, experiencing the communion of the Church, and sharing with others the huge gift they have received.
With this hope, we are preparing the 26th World Youth Day in Madrid. It is a journey in which we immediately wanted to take seriously the Pope's judgment on the work of Gaudí. After his visit to Barcelona, a leaflet was spread among friends and in our work places ("A Historic Opportunity"—see Traces, Vol. 12, No. 11 [Dec.], 2010, p. 1). Here begins the true dialogue with modernity to which the Pope invites us, before beautiful works that force people to question themselves, works that are 'a visible sign of the invisible God,'" we wrote. "If the people who encounter us cannot see and touch this beauty in our humanity and our works, dialogue will be impossible." Our involvement in the cultural events which will accompany the whole week of the WYD arise precisely from our wanting to give voice to this universal language of beauty.

Parks and cloisters. The organizing Committee has chosen eight exhibitions, set up in parks, cloisters, and churches. "The Portico of Glory: At the End of the Journey There is Someone Waiting for You;" "Passion for Man: St. Turibius of Mongrovejo;" "At the Service of God and of the King: The Reducciones of Paraguay;" "The Sistine Chapel and the Mystery of the Body;" "A Land for Man;" "Contemporary Art and Faith;" and "Persecuted Christians." "Sagrada Familia: Moved by Beauty," is destined for a place of privilege: Il Parco del Retiro, the heart of the event. This last exhibit is born of a collaboration between a group of volunteers and the architects and builders of the Sagrada Familia. It is a way of bringing Gaudí to Madrid, since not all the pilgrims will be able to visit Barcelona. Above all, it will serve to recount the emotion of those who have visited the most recently constructed basilica in Europe, by means of various multimedia effects. There will even be some laboratories in which the visitors will be able to take part physically in the building of the Basilica, by attaching a piece to the mosaic on the pinnacle, or writing an intention that will be placed under the floor at the entrance to the sacristy. The collaboration born with the organizers has been remarkable, like in the case of the exhibition on the reducciones, prepared initially for the Rimini Meeting in 2009: for the whole year, CL volunteers have been meeting to work on the panels with the Madrid Jesuits, who gave them space in their cloister.
For Thursday, August 18th, the program foresees a vigil presentation on the theme "Beauty: Man's Great Need," starting at 10:00 pm in the Parque de Berlin. This will be a public event with images, videos, and songs from all over the world, which will take its theme from an address by the then-Cardinal Ratzinger at the Rimini Meeting of 2002. In order to prepare the evening vigil, a number of volunteers have been meeting every week, tackling the various organizational problems: the set design for the location, the permits for the maxi-screens, etc.
In order to welcome the visitors, a specially prepared guide to the city has been prepared by Fr. Emilio Pérez, a CL priest who patiently coordinated the work (without charge) of scores of teachers and students, even including printing of a handbook: 50,000 copies destined for the churches and all the official sales-points of the WYD, aimed at making known the contributions of Christians to the building of the capital city. There is also a course for the volunteer guides, in collaboration with the San Dámaso Theological Faculty and the Museum of the Cathedral of Almuneda.

A human convenience. This is how we are waiting for Benedict XVI to arrive, with hundreds of moments of Liturgy, catechesis, and prayer, all meant to favor the personal encounter with Christ, which is the most advantageous thing that can happen in our lives. This is why CL in Spain is proposing participation in the WYD as the educative event of the summer. For us, it will be a chance to personally experience Fr. Julián Carrón's proposal: the human convenience of faith. Many can already witness to it with their own experiences in the family and in school, including at the university level. If we have offered our services for preparing the event and for welcoming the Pope, it is in order to go on experiencing this human convenience of the faith.