One of the special features of World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, was the Catechesis session held on each of the first three days of this week of joy and celebration.
The fifth production of the Catholic Schools’ ASPIRE Performing Arts program certainly lived up to its aim for the students involved to aspire to higher levels of performance in their various performing arts disciplines.
This week, our World Youth Day Pilgrims will return to the normality of life after was has been just on four weeks of amazing experiences as the young and the “vintaged” from our diocese and from Melbourne and Sydney took part in an inter-generational pilgrimage to Krakow, Poland.
One of my lasting memories of the 2008 World Youth Day was the sense of joy that existed both in our diocese and in Sydney during the week long celebrations there. I distinctly recall two runners on their lunchtime jog through Hyde Park commenting on the atmosphere created by the "invasion" of hundreds of thousands of young people from across the world.
The World Youth Day pilgrims from the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle have completed the first leg of their pilgrimage and depart for Kraków in Poland today.