Whatever Happens, Happens (World Youth Day 2011)

Yesterday, I went to an event called Camino, a day-long send-off event for all of the Vancouver World Youth Day pilgrims. The day was filled with good company, beautiful weather, pilgrimage, talks, mass (duh), and even an evening concert. It was a great way for a lot of the pilgrims to come together, celebrate faith, and even in the smallest way, prepare ourselves for our pilgrimage to Madrid.

However, what really set the mood for not only the day's activities, but for World Youth Day as a whole, were the talks given by keynote speaker Makani Marquis. Now this guy leads an interesting life. Back when World Youth Day was in Denver in 1993, he walked there. When WYD was in Toronto in 2002, he biked there - in 3 and a half weeks. Nowadays, for 6 months of the year, he works for the archdiocese of Vancouver as their webmaster. The other 6 months? He lives as a hermit, seeking solitude in the middle of nowhere, in order to become more in tune with God. He brings some spiritual reading with him, and makes it back into civilization proper every week for mass. Other than that, he doesn't speak to anyone, read any newspapers, listen to music, or watch tv. He doesn't even speak to himself. As you might expect, he had some very insightful and challenging things to say to all of the pilgrims.

Settling For Less

Jesus said many things about Himself while He dwelt among us as a human being. One statement in particular stands out to me: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). It's such a powerful statement. Christ is telling us that we will find eternal life through His way, which is truth. And He set up His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church on earth to show us the truth, guided by the Holy Spirit.

But the fact of the matter is...as Catholic Christians, while the Truth leads us home, it also sets us apart from the world.

Apathetic Way to Be

Recently, I’ve been on a shopping spree. And by spree, I mean that I went shopping. Besides this shopping outing that I embarked on, the last time I went to a mall with the sole purpose of buying clothes was like. When Christ was born. “But wait Jeremy! You weren’t born back then!” Exactly. I go to Park Royal because there’s a Future Shop there. If I could wear an Xbox 360, I would.

My friend Daina had planted in me the seeds of “looking good.” To which I replied, “Honey, you can’t look much better than this.” Well, sort of. Well, no. And so that weekend I went to get a nice pair of jeans. And then the next weekend I went back to the mall with no specific shopping aim, but just to look around and see what caught my eye! I ended up buying some really nice stuff, and yeah I was satisfied with my purchases. Yes, I thought I looked nice in the stuff (otherwise I wouldn’t have forked over the money, even if they were on sale). But it actually made me ponder a bit, that from one sentence from a friend (not blaming her, by the way), my state of mind went from trying to look alright and keep warm to trying to look fantastic and keep cool.