World Youth Day USA Guides Stateside Pilgrimage Leaders Guide | Page 14

the international experience, can be

What is being asked of leaders and planners is

memorable in their own ways.

to see the bigger possibility of what World
Youth Day can be. Since 1984, over half a

Finally, what happens when the stateside

million young people from the United States

activities are finished and the international

have been impacted directly by physical

pilgrims come back home? The hope of the

participation at World Youth Day. How many

community is that the stateside pilgrim has

came back to communities without the

not just been watching television and the

mission or permission to work for the

international pilgrim has not just had a

transformation of the Church? How many

vacation and snapped a few pictures.

youth and young adults, who did not have the
opportunity to travel to World Youth Day,

The hope is that all these pilgrims have had an

were never engaged or transformed

experience of encounter and transformation

themselves by such experiences? The

so that they might transform their

community is and must be integral to the

communities. Such an experience is a grace,

pilgrim’s story. In more recent times, digital

but it is also difficult to achieve if there is no

media has increased the access of non-

intentionality on the part of the community,

pilgrims to engage the experience, but left to

the leadership, and the pilgrim upon their

chance and mere consumption, there is no

return. Evenings of reflection where the

guarantee this will bear fruit. It may even

stateside and international pilgrims report

garner a negative result. The choice to be

back to the community or offer gifts to the

made is in how to engage those who remain,

community are ways of making a lasting

especially utilizing the benefits that

impression on others and help solidify the

technology offers.

impact of World Youth Day.
At times, people of faith come off the
Imagine the simple action of a hundred

mountaintop of a pilgrimage, retreat, or

pilgrims each bringing ten rosaries that

mission trip and don’t know what to do next.

were blessed in a sacred shrine and then

They may forget that the community, founded

giving them out to 1,000 people as an

in the Eucharist, is the source of the pilgrim’s

invitation to deepen their prayer life and

journey and, ultimately, their final destination.

solidarity with others.

What is done to cultivate this communal
understanding will help determine if the
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