"Open mind, open heart, God will take care of the rest."

                  "We are a pilgrim people and 'Where the heck are we?' is our song. " --JPII

                                

     We just finished day four of WYD (it officially started after the opening Mass Tuesday night, which we missed), and it's been a wonderful adventure so far. On Wednesday we finally began to be able to participate in events and get where we intended to go without too much difficulty, but our feet are as sore as ever!

Help?

     On Tuesday, we got up and headed to the main square in search of our registration and "pilgrim pack." It was very exciting to see so many people from around the world and the beautiful St. Mary's Basilica where JPII regularly heard confessions. Unfortunately (or so it would seem), we had some difficulty figuring out exactly where to get our registration. Everywhere we went a friendly volunteer would inform us that we were supposed to go somewhere else. "Somewhere else" often turned out to be across the city, and several times it was where we had just been sent from. So we ended up tramming from here to there and back again for a long five hours, with no success and not a little discouragement. We were on our way to a church where we had been told we'd find our packs and registration (without which we were not allowed into WYD events) and we were about ready to just be tourists in Krakow without our registrations if this didn't end up being where to find them. (Of course, that would have meant not being able to see the Pope, so I'm sure we would have persevered a little longer....) We came to the church, it had big banners of St. Faustina and JPII just like every other church around, but we never could find out what it was called. Anyway, we went in and prayed for a while (it was stunning) and right out back we found everything we'd been looking for. Praise God! Yet again, we hadn't eaten or drunk water for far too long, so we finally found somewhere around six and had lunch. (This is why we missed the opening Mass.) We seem to be trying to keep up the happy tradition of one meal a day. We also ran into the TAC group, and some students of Thomas' from St. Monicas.  

     On Wednesday Rosie and I went and got some coffee and breakfast from a neat coffee shop called Columbus Coffee, and then took the tram to the Tauron Arena where the English catechesis was taking place. It's a huge indoor sports arena, and it was packed with people who wanted to hear about God's mercy.

Tauron Arena

Not a bad place to be! I loved the talks that we got to hear, Cardinal Sean O'Mally gave the main one, but there were lots of other, shorter ones as well. Then there was Mass (lovely music,) and Rosie and I managed to find the restaurant where George Weigel was giving his talk on the soul of John Paul II. SO MUCH good stuff to hear and think about, can't quite be summed up. Later we met up with Rosalie and Joseph and went into St. Mary's and visited the Jewish quarter of the city. That night we went back to the arena for "Night of Mercy," basically lots of singing worship music and some more good talks and adoration. Bishop Barron gave one of the talks. It was rather impossible to get back to our airbnb after that, every single tram was jam packed and there were people everywhere. 

     Thursday was another fun but long day: catechesis, Mass, and more interesting talks this morning, and then the welcoming ceremony for Pope Francis. That was really neat because it was our first experience of the whole lot of pilgrims meeting in one place, and there are SO MANY. With such a huge number of pilgrims walking around the city, all of whom are probably tired and hot and hungry and in need of a bathroom and transportation (all at the same time) it is definitely striking and beautiful to observe the kindness and joy they show to each other! I haven't heard a harsh word or a seen an impatient shove all week (although I may have wished to give one at certain points. Some groups find it really fun to scream a national song or motivational chant all together, even if their group happens to be on a small tram full of people who don't know their language and who want to be asleep, and are literally having trouble breathing for lack of room...But they keep it up. For the whole ride. And when the last words of the song are, "so we say it louder..." you get the picture.) But the point still stands, everybody seems to be good-willed, loving and happy. And 'everybody' is a lot of people. 

Outside St. Joseph's Church

     It was easy to think at the beginning of this trip, with the hours and hours of walking and searching and confusing directions, that it would have been better had we been able to find such and such place, get what we were looking for, not be so tired, know exactly what was going on and where we should be, not miss any buses, not be so delayed, and really be able to get on track and participate in WYD. However, it seems to me that if that were the case, we'd be participating less. John Paul II, one of the official WYD saints, who lived in this very city and who most of the things we're learning about and talking about are inspired by, had a life filled with many similar, and many worse sufferings than these. Yet he lived that trust in God's mercy every minute and told us to do that too. It seems like it would be such a contradiction to not try to actually live the trust he preached if we're here to understand and learn how to live it better. So I am very grateful for these frustrating situations, what's the point of WYD if we didn't experience them? They're opportunities to "practice what we preach," and we still have it pretty easy because our days also happen to be filled with scheduled public inspirational talks about trusting in God every minute of the day no matter how we feel and seeing what he does, and we're surrounded by others trying to do the same. That's more than JPII had in this city when he was our age! 

Just saw the Pope! 

     Also, it's kind of fun to look at a missed bus as a random adventure that God allowed to happen so that we could have a different experience than we expected, and then to find a little treasure that we wouldn't have received had things gone the way we wanted! On Tuesday looking for our pilgrim packs, instead of finding them easily and getting lunch on time, we asked a Polish volunteer named

We're gonna cross this street. And find lunch.
   On three. 

Hubert for help, and he ended up walking with us, helping us ask people who might know, and then guiding us to the bus station and explaining how to buy tickets and where to go. (Turned out to be the wrong place, but still.) It was a very enjoyable time, not wasted in any sense. It was another little surprise like our car ride in Sweden with Michael. We keep missing buses and making new friends instead! Jesus, I trust in you!

Lunch outside JPII shrine

     Today we got to go to the John Paul II and the Divine Mercy shrines. We weren't able to go into either because of the crowd, but we got to go to adoration at the divine Mercy shrine and eat lunch outside of JPII, which is still being built. Tomorrow is the long pilgrimage to the vigil site, but we don't really know how long that will be. I heard somewhere that it's a nine mile walk each way, so we'll see. If so that shouldn't be a problem because we are SUPER TOUGH after all the walking we've been doing so far. All the same, wish us luck.