The final event of WYD08 was dramatic! About 200,000 pilgrims from around the city converged on Randwick Racecourse to spend the night sleeping out, while thousands of Sydney-siders came in the morning to join them for the final Mass.
I arrived at around 3pm on Saturday night after a 2km pilgrimage on bike from home to find the racecourse pretty full. The atmosphere was joyful but subdued " mainly due to lack of sleep, as many pilgrims had been up from before dawn to prepare for and make their trek.
Ray’s story
I started talking with a group from Tweed Heads who had partnered with a group from the Solomon Islands. This partnership involved many of the people from Tweed Heads travelling to the Solomon Islands before WYD and some good friendships were made.
Ray was here with his teenage son, and was very happy with the experience his son was having, meeting with people from around the world. Ray's family were at least 3rd generation Roman Catholic. Ray's mother was an orphan, raised by nuns and deaf from a blow to the head by one of the nuns when she was a child.
Ray has had a colorful life " being involved in a near fatal car accident at 17. He was telling me how a priest came to offer him last rites before his operation and how he told the priest in colourful language to go away.
Last rites, called anointing of the sick these days, is a Sacrament the Catholic Church offers to people who are very ill. It involves prayer and anointing with oil and is supposed to prepare the person for their journey to heaven. It is often accompanied by the sacraments of Reconciliation (confessing sins and receiving forgiveness) and the Eucharist (Holy Communion).
Despite Ray's vigorous objection it was performed. Ray's mum also tied a scapula (two pieces of cloth supposed to convey spiritual benefits when worn) around his bed. Ray survived his operation and attributed this to the scapular his mum gave him. He passed this scapular on to a friend of his in need some years later with the instructions to pass it on to other people when they needed it.
Ray has had a tough life, losing a child early in his marriage and leaving Sydney for a two-year fishing trip as a result of this loss, before finally settling in Tweed Heads. Eight years ago he was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour and was told he only had months to live. He told me this with a tear in his eye.
Ray underwent radical brain surgery, this time inviting a priest to give him the sacrament of anointing of the sick. He also met an evangelical minister who offered to pray for him. Before his operation, his doctor, Dr Ray Cook said " you will have to trust me for this to work, because you will be conscious during the operation. Ray remembers going into the operation with a sense of peace " he survived and eight years later there is still no sign of the tumour recurring. He lives each day not knowing if it will recur.
Was Ray certain of where he will be spending eternity? "If I'm good enough" but he seemed pretty sure. "I think God's a good bloke " He's got me through this far."
We talked about the Good News that despite the fact that none of us are good enough for God, if we trust Jesus with our lives " like Ray trusted Dr Cook, doing and believing what Jesus tells us in His Word " then Jesus will get us there!
The rock concert was in full swing when I left, Geoff Bullock was performing, "Jesus, God's Righteousness Revealed".
“They brought out Jesus”
I returned to the Racecourse early Sunday Morning to find lots of locals streaming in " reports were that there were 400,000 at the racecourse.
I asked a couple of weary looking souls what happened over night. One woman, who looked like she had Down's syndrome said, "We had a vigil and adoration".
I asked her what that was, she said " "The Pope came, then they brought Jesus out". By this she meant that in tents throughout the racecourse, pieces of bread " believed to be Jesus " were put in special display cases for people to worship and pray to. Priests were nearby to hear people's confession. This went on throughout the night with lots of singing and dancing. No one got much sleep.
In this woman's simple words something struck me " none of what happened this week makes sense unless you believe that this bit of bread is Jesus. The amount of time spent saying Mass (the Pilgrims had two two-hour sessions during the week as well as daily Mass where they stayed), the enthusiasm of the young priest I met on Wednesday, Dominic, to get his accreditation to hand out the bread, the way that teaching the Bible is put in second place whenever the bread is involved, even the hysteria surrounding the Pope is not because of his great teaching " though he is a formidable theologian " but because he brings Jesus to people by changing the bread into Jesus.
Before the final Mass began, I was chatting to an Irish priest who lived in Nevada. We talked a bit about the environment and he made the helpful point that whenever we talk about carbon dioxide as a pollutant gas, we are saying that humanity is destroying the world. This he said, and I agreed, is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis 1, where God made humankind rulers of this world and this was very good. When I told him that I had left the Catholic Church, he was keen to encourage me to return to the one true church. We talked a bit (he did most of the talking) and agreed to correspond by email. My parents will be pleased.
The final Mass
The final Mass began. Cardinal George Pell began proceedings by addressing the Pope. He said, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord". These words are used in the Bible to refer to God coming to visit humankind. Cardinal Pell then went on to talk about the importance of the church. Again honouring the Pope and calling him the vicar of Peter. He said "the Church has no other mission other than to proclaim the name of the Lord". But that isn't what I've been seeing.
The Mass was similar to the one at Darling Harbour. No assurance was given again after confessing sins. The Bible readings were from Acts 1:3-8, 2:1-12 said in Spanish and French, Some of Psalm 102 sung in Polynesian (I think),1 Corinthians 12:4-13 said in Italian and Luke 4:16-22a sung in English. I don't know why they left out Luke 4:22b or the rest of Acts 1.
Luke 4:22b explains why the crowd was amazed. Ending at v22a could give a very different impression. Acts 1 records Jesus' ascension into heaven to rule the universe at God's right hand. As a result of His enthronement he gives gifts to the world. These gifts are those seen at Pentecost. The effect of having readings in different languages and two sung was that the Bible was not made clear (the opposite of what happened at Pentecost when everyone heard the Bible clearly whatever language they spoke). The Pope spoke for about 20 minutes.
My initial impressions of the talk were, a lot of discussion about the Holy Spirit and His actions, but there were two glaring omissions. There was very little linkage made between the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ and the Father. This has the effect of leading us to think of the Holy Spirit as a separate entity from Christ and the Father. This could lead people into tritheism. Neither the Roman Catholic Church or any Protestant denominations hold to this teaching, nor, I am sure does Pope Benedict. That is why I am mystified as to why so little mention was made of Christ and His works.
Again, in such a context it is very easy to mishear and I will read his full transcript when I can get it and would be happy to be corrected.
Secondly, I cannot recall hearing a linkage made between the Spirit of God and God's words found in the Bible. Given that this is a major part of God's teaching in both the Old and New Testaments, it is strange that he didn't comment on this.
With regards to receiving the Holy Spirit (which he seemed to separate from Baptism and suggest that Confirmation was somehow in addition to receiving God's Spirit in Baptism) he said we "receive it not by merit or achievement but as pure gift, but we have to let it break through". This suggests that we could somehow resist the power of God's Spirit. In the end, inferring that God's work in this world depends on us.
It does not! God graciously chooses to use us in his work, and promises to do that. But to suggest that God's Spirit will not work in this world unless we let it places an intolerable burden on us.
Like Cardinal George Pell, the Pope exhorted the pilgrims to do many things, he said "What legacy will you leave? Are you building on a firm foundation? Are you open to the Spirit? Are you using your gifts properly? What difference will you make? He said every Christian received a gift for building up the Church and said, do not be afraid to say ‘yes to Jesus’ and become a priest. He concluded with some words about the sacrament of Confirmation, which he linked to new birth and refreshing, before praying through the mother of God that "many would go forth to proclaim the risen Christ and draw every heart to Him."
I thought we were supposed to pray through Jesus to the Father in His Spirit but I liked the content of his prayer.
I left before they had Holy Communion together and was encouraged to see several [url=http://www.certainty.org.au]http://www.certainty.org.au[/url] inscriptions as I left.
It's hard to sum up such a week. I was encouraged and also saddened by the people that I met. Encouraged by many people’s openness to talk about God, saddened by the fact that so few were sure about where they stood with God and that they were relying on being good enough for God rather than relying on Jesus paying for their sins.
With regards to the WYD events themselves, I was encouraged by the Catholic Church standing up to be counted in an environment where they are often marginalised. I was saddened by the way they taught their people to rely on themselves, on Mary, on the Church but not entirely on Jesus.
Thank you to everyone who helped with this campaign, especially my wife who nursed three kids with fevers, whilst having a fever herself this week to enable me to do this. Thanks also to Andrew Moore who reviewed these posts and Jeremy Halcrow who edited them. Thanks also to Outreach Media who produced the certainty flyers and website (keep watching this site as they continue to develop it) and all at the Cathedral including the speakers, who opened their doors and their hearts for the week as mission-central for a great week of evangelism.
