At World Youth Day, no one is a stranger

BY KATHERINE POJE

I went to see El Escorial and buy a mantilla and came back thinking world peace isn’t so impossible after all. The in-between bit? World Youth Day.

My desire to go to Madrid had nothing to do with seeing the pope. I was going for culture and history, faith taking a backseat. I was embarrassed by our matching WYD T-shirts and the clear “tourist” vibe we were giving off as we stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take photos. Worst of all though, I couldn’t believe we were bringing American flag pins to hand out. No one would want one, I was sure.

Well, I was wrong. Everywhere our group of 17 went, we were met with calls of “Where are you from?” from other WYD participants. When we answered “New York!” they started to chant “USA! USA!” I ran out of bracelets on the third day and American flag pins on the fifth; everyone, from Germans, to the French, to the Spanish, to the Taiwanese wanted an American souvenir. And each one of us 17 girls wanted something to take home from these foreign best friends. As we traded knick knacks, we’d chat about our homes, our experience at WYD and our hopes for the future. We’d sing a few refrains of “est es la juventud de papa.” Really, the best way to describe WYD is as a place and time, united in Christ, in which no one is a stranger and anyone can be your best friend. You just have to ask the favorite opening line, “Where are you from?”

A French girl, one of 400 pilgrims from Bordeaux, and I spent an hour talking as we waited for the commencement of the WYD opening ceremonies. She plans on spending her third university year studying abroad in Iowa and wanted to practice her English. I will never forget the question she asked me, with a nervous half-smile, “What do Americans think of the French?” As I reassured her that we had a soft spot for their food and that every teenaged American girl wants to visit Paris, she sighed, relieved. “I’ve always thought that Americans hate the French, that the rest of Europe does not like us so very much either.”

Funny, because I thought the same about the French and Europe, except in the reverse. So as I watched the colorful flags waving in the blindingly blue Spanish sky and the sea of people gathered around, some dancing in huge, multi-ethnic conga lines, some clapping for the pope, and as I saw a Spanish woman kneel on the hard pavement so that she could pass her folding stool to an elderly nun from Mexico, formerly kneeling on the rough asphalt three rows up, I wondered why it was that we were all so convinced we hated each other. Because at WYD, all I’d seen was love.

Back in New York, no one asks me where I’m from. No one wants to trade T-shirts or give me a postcard of their local church. So the feeling of universal connection and kindness isn’t quite as pronounced. But I know that as I finish my summer assignments, as I buy tickets to see “The Help,” I’ve got a twin on every continent of the world. And since I know these fellow youths have similar hopes, dreams, fears, I know them. They are my best friends. They are not the people that we fought against nearly 70 years ago, that colonized us nearly three hundred years ago. They are not the people that government calls allies or enemies. That’s the past. We are the future. And our future, I hope, I pray, I believe, is one of love. It is the coming of the Kingdom of God. Out of everything, this is what I am firm in, this is my faith.

KATHERINE POJE is a senior at Our Lady of Mercy Academy, Syosset.