World Youth Day USA Guides International Pilgrimage Leaders Guide | Page 33

promoter of peace between peoples and

the company of Americans like Abraham

religions”; and Fr. Mychal Judge, O.F.M.,

Lincoln, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Dorothy Day,

chaplain to the New York Fire Department and

Thomas Merton, St. Katharine Drexel, Cesar

minister to the homeless, AIDS victims, and

Chavez, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

recovering alcoholics, who was the first official

there are many great reasons to claim a national

victim of the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade

identity at World Youth Day. A task for pilgrim

Center while offering assistance to rescuers and

leaders is to help youth and young adults

the injured. Their examples are but a few that

understand the heritage of mercy of these great

provide a blueprint for mercy to those most in

icons of American history and to follow in their

need of comfort and healing—a mercy central

footsteps by responding to the Lord’s call.

to our Catholic faith yet also embedded in the
history of our nation. As Abraham Lincoln said

When your pilgrims travel outside the United

only a few weeks prior to his assassination,

States, will people see in them the one who said

preaching a “gospel” of reconciliation and

“with malice towards none, with charity for

mercy to a war-weary nation in 1865:

all”? Will they recognize, in U.S. pilgrims, the
embodiment of the poem found on the Statue

With malice towards none, with charity

of Liberty: “give me your tired, your poor, your

for all, with firmness in the right as God

huddled masses yearning to breathe free”?

gives us to see the right, let us strive on

Most importantly, will they see American

to finish the work we are in, to bind up the

young people who, above all else, follow the

nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall

one who mercifully says, “Come to me, all

have borne the battle and for his widow

who you labor and are heavy burdened, for

and his orphan, to do all which may

I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28)?

achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.

Being an American Catholic at World Youth
Day means humbly bringing the highest ideals

It is true that some might feel ashamed, afraid,

of the nation (pioneering, unity, and mercy) and

or embarrassed to let others know of their

sharing them with one’s international peers,

American heritage in international settings like

while learning from others’ traditions and

World Youth Day. One might be worried that

cultures, so that they might come back to their

the haughty or rude actions of other citizens

native land inspired and ready to incorporate all

could define them as well. However, when in

of that into their local communities.
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