Madrid: August 16-21, 2011
Every three years, the Evangelization Ministry at Immaculate Heart of Mary coordinates with our Youth Ministry to plan a trip to World Youth Day for our youth group and Confermandi students. The next upcoming trip is in August of 2011 to Madrid, Spain. Immaculate Heart of Mary also helps plan and host numerous events designed to help elicit donations for the travel of our World Youth Day participants. If you would like to join us for World Youth Day, please speak to the Director Evangelization or the Director of Youth Ministry. You can also visit the World Youth Day 2011 official site, http://www.madrid11.com/en.
Our World Youth Day visit to Madrid, Spain was a tremendous success! 80 pilgrims from Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Louis of Louisville, CO and Good Shepherd of TX spent 12 days visiting religious sites in Rome and Spain, as well as attending World Youth Day with the Holy Father in Madrid. They joined 2 million other young people in the largest gathering of human beings in the world! Below are letters from some of our pilgrims about their experience and the effect that this pilgrimage had on them. You can also check out pictures on our Facebook page HERE.
Letters from World Youth Day Pilgrims
Hello, my name is Meghan Davenport. I am one of about 80 pilgrims that went on the 2011 World Youth Day Madrid, Spain pilgrimage. My story deals with the everyday life of Madrid and the power of the rosary. Before the trip I had personal mini-miracles dealing with the rosary, but nothing like the miracle in Europe. Keep in mind that I am a 15 year old girl that had never been out of the country and I had never been on a subway either.
When we first got to Europe we started in Italy and visited dozens of churches and places. One place that I will never forget is the subway, dancing to the Macarena and doing the chicken dance even though we got some weird looks from everyone else on the cab. We all had so much fun and were so comfortable there. Then came Madrid. I don’t know if you know what 2 million people in one city is like but it was very chaotic! The day of World Youth Day came and our hotel was about 11 miles from the actual site. So like everyone else in the city we decided “let’s take the subway it will be great.” It was a great plan except for the fact that everyone else had the same idea!
So we were standing on a platform along with probably a couple hundred more people. The first subway came along and as the cars went by you could see how cram-packed we were going to be. The doors opened and in all kinds of languages people yelled at me saying, “You’re not going to fit!” or “You can’t get on,” all while I was being pushed off the subway. Then I waited like everyone else for about another 12 minutes and the second train came along and it was just as bad as the first, so I pushed and shoved through and about 10 of us teens got on with no adults or anything. At first it was a little scary, but I realized after about a minute that I couldn’t lift my hands up past my waist. We were so packed that no one could move, and more people were coming on. After about the third stop I started to freak out a little. I am basically on the ground with feet all around me and we had definitely exceeded the number of people that could fit in the car. At this point I’m about to cry because I was so afraid and nervous. Then I looked over to the near exit and this man pulled off his rosary from around his neck and started to pray, so I started praying with him as best as I could. Then I heard voices from everywhere saying the Hail Mary. On the right there are Italians praying, to the left the Spanish praying. It was amazing and then the subway came to a sudden stop for the next platform and I heard people screaming the Hail Mary with all their might because they were just as scared as me. By now the whole cab is praying together in different languages, but all the same prayer, the rosary because we are all there and all have one thing in common: Jesus!
We finally reached the stop and were hustled out of the station, but I realized that we all made it out alive and that I may just be one American teenage girl, but there are at least 2 million other teens that are just like me, and have a love for something bigger than this world! So thank you, because without your
emotional, physical and financial support I wouldn’t have been 1 of 2 million pilgrims praying on a subway!