Thursday, July 31, 2008

"Sophia" on Spiritandsong.com

Follow the link to listen to one of my favorite Matt Maher songs on Spiritandsong.com!

Day 2 - Catechesis and MATT MAHER!!!!!!


Woke up bright and early at 7AM to the cawing and cackling of a morning bird I never learnt the name of but definitely earned to hate, for his sounds clawed at my nerves in bed every morning in Australia. In the kitchen, Alma greeted us with huge cups of steaming coffee, hot toast, feta cheese, and olives. The coffee was a necessity, the only warmth to cold bodies in that house (the house is old and has no central heating). Even though the church was right around the corner, Alma insisted on driving us there for Catechesis, which started at 9AM on the dot. (Above: Celeste and I pose with Sr. Mary Gabriel)

Our first Catechesis session was given by a bishop from India. Each session during the week began with prayer and music led by the "Act1v8 Team" of St. Joseph's, followed by a talk, Q&A, and Mass all given and celebrated by the visiting bishop of the day. The bishop from India was very nice but difficult to understand, and as a result the talk and Q&A were fairly useless. During Mass, Joe and Dominique Farah (our totally awesome Catechesis leaders) pulled Leste and I up in front to teach everyone the hand motions to "I'm Trading My Sorrows", and from then on we were colloquially known as the "ITMS" girls.

Unlike his talk, the bishop's homily was quite understandable. He told the story of a girl who left her home to work in the city, but who accidentally left her mirror at home. She wrote and asked her mother to send one: instead, her mother sent three. The first mirror was a normal one; the second was plastered with a picture of a skull, and the third with a lovely picture of Mary the Mother of God. The girl was dismayed and called her mother to ask what the mirrors meant. Her mother told her that "the first is so you know what a beautiful girl you are in the eyes of God; the second is a reminder of your mortality; and the third is a reminder that you are always supposed to look like your mother. You must pray to look like your Mother." Beautiful.

With the end of Mass, we took part in the largest Aussie BBQ in history (it made the Book of World Records!) for lunch. All Catechesis sites throughout the city fired up their grills to break the world record. And I must say the BBQ was delicious - the best lunch all week!

We then proceeded to take the train (Sydney has the nicest public transit system I have ever encountered) into the city. Leste and I's first stop was the University of Notre Dame Broadway campus (if you ever want to see a city, I've decided the best way is to attend WYD there) to check out the "Love and Life Site" run by the Sisters of Life from New York City. I was blessed to have the opportunity to visit them and meet a number of the Sisters back in mid-March, so I was excited to see them again. The Sisters are simply lovely, and their work/ministry/life focuses on caring and providing for women with crisis pregnancies, helping them to carry to term. But they also do a great deal of counseling and support for women who are suffering from the trauma of abortions. The order was founded about twenty years ago by John Cardinal O'Connor, and today it is a vibrant community of about 75 Sisters.

Pro-life speaker Bernadette Black gave a talk at the site about her own crisis pregnancy, and the CFR group "Catholic Underground" gave a short concert. It isn't every day that you go to a concert and get a priestly blessing at the end! And then, the drumroll. Anyone who knows the Sisters knows they have two major musical passions: Celtic and Matt Maher. Next up on the stage was MATT MAHER!!!!!! I was jumping out of my skin I was so excited. Matt Maher, needless to say, is also my one major musical passion. He even sang one of my favorite songs: "Sophia". (Above: Cafe Benedicto, Holding the Keys to a Cup of Good Java)

After the concert everyone was told that Matt was going to be around for about fifteen minutes to sign autographs. Well, I already have three but I really wanted to meet him so Leste and I squeezed in line. To our surprise, we did get up there before fifteen minutes were up, and Matt posed for a picture! What an awesome guy. I was as happy as a clam and just kept saying "thank you" over and over again. Matt even teased me before I left for my level of gratitude. (Above: Matt Maher! :::aaaaaaaaa:::)

I had to track down Sr. Mary Gabriel, the Vocations Directress for the Sisters of Life, and say hello. Eventually, I found her in the crowd. She gave me a great warm hug, I introduced Celeste, and we chatted awhile. She wanted to know how my comprehensive exams went in May (was it really two months ago?) and told us that she reads our Lilies blog! How funny. I love her to death - she is a gorgeous woman of God.

It was around this time that our cousins found us (Laura, Janice, Anne, and Steven), and Anne split off with Leste and I to go to the CFR Party at world-famous Bondi Beach (for those who don't know the coolness of the CFRs, they are the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal who work with the youth and gangs in the Bronx, NY). The beach was absolutely beautiful. We spread out a blanket and took in a fantastic concert, which included Fr. Stan Fortuna (CFR - the Rapping Priest), the God Squad, and was headlined by none other than MATT MAHER. Huzzahs for twice in one day!

Late, we made our way back to Belmore and to bed. On the train we met some other pilgrims from Paraguay and New Zealand who were awesome. Back at "home", we said goodnight to the Sukkars, and they showed us a big box of food and drinks that their neighbor (who has a banana tree in her backyard!) brought for the pilgrims from the United States.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Day 1 - It's Sydney or BUST!

We arose at 3AM after a fitful few hours of sleep, finished any last-minute packing, and Mommy, Kenny, and Elizabeth drove us to Reagan National Airport. After a tearful goodbye, Celeste and I were on our way through the security checkpoint, shoeless, plastic ziplock of liquids of less than 3 oz. in hand, and ready to lose all remnant of self-respect as our bags were screened. (Below: Celeste naps in the airport at LAX)


Our first two legs of our journey (from DC to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to LAX) were grueling and uneventful (except for my becoming a band leader's best friend for giving him the aisle seat). Once in Los Angeles, Celeste and I picked up our hard-core Kelty internal frame backpacks, recommended by a good friend, and met the cousins for lunch.

Rumors swirled around the food court about cancelled Qantas flights to Australia. I called my mother and discovered what was to be my headache for the next twenty-four hours: citizens in Sydney, unhappy with the amount of money spent on WYD, had staged a strike to make the city look bad. Although it was just a Qantas mechanic strike, it was enough to make Sydney indeed look disorganized and ground a number of planes. As a result, the cousins were stuck in Los Angeles overnight and Leste and I spent about eight weary hours in the most boring terminal in LAX (not even a Starbucks!) waiting for our flight to New Zealand to be confirmed. Meanwhile, we ate some sandwiches for dinner, bought a few magazines, and I got a migraine. (Many thanks to all my relatives who called and helped form several backup plans!)

Finally, we boarded our Qantas flight to New Zealand, still unsure of our connecting flight to Sydney. We were told we "may" be diverted to Melbourne. I was too tired to deal with anything, and after watching an episode of "Dr. Who", turned on "Lawrence of Arabia" and promptly fell asleep after the first five minutes. I shall never actually finish that movie.

Celeste did not sleep much during our flight, but I got a decent six hours on her shoulder (thanks Leste!). When I woke up, we watched "Vantage Point" and "Dan in Real Life" (one of my new favorites) together. Praise God, it wasn't too much later when we arrived in Auckland and were told the strike was over. The final leg of our trip, from Auckland to Sydney, was again delightfully uneventful save the new and rather stressful experience of filling out customs forms which I found rather ambiguous. Do wooden saints' bracelets count as wood? Is my sleeping bag dirty? Is migraine medication a "regulated" medication? How twisted one can get around little words.

There were a lot of WYD pilgrims travelling with us from New Zealand to Sydney, who sang in the back of the plane throughout the flight. I met and spent some time chatting with a middle-aged Australian man, now living in America, who was travelling home to visit grandchildren. He used to be in charge of mining safety procedures in Australia, a country which is apparently a large producer of coal. The fellow was invited to the United States to streamline our accident response system after last year's mining accidents.

Tired but excited, we finished with customs and immigration in Sydney and walked out into the airport. As we were walking towards the train platforms, past roving groups of CFRs and smiling nuns and pushing through hundreds of young people, I heard my name called and ahead of me was the friendly face of Tom Yehl, a seminarian from Arlington, VA, classmate and friend. He gave me a big hug and we chatted a few minutes before I pushed on to find trains and international cell phone cards.

At the ticket counter the clerk told me how to get to Belmore station, and I got into conversation with an elderly gentleman and his two grandsons who were "going back in family history for the day at Manly". They welcomed us to the city and asked if we would see the Pope. Of course we were all grins at the reminder of the excitement to come.

We took the trains as instructed to Belmore, about a forty-minute ride outside central Sydney. Belmore is a mostly Turkish, Greek, and Lebonese community/town, and all the shops reflect its heritage. The clerk at Belmore station told us how to get to St. Joseph's Maronite parish, and we dragged ourselves for ten minutes up the hill to the church.

We dragged ourselves into the walled courtyard of St. Joseph's Parish. Instantaneously, we were made right at home. An elderly Turkish man pulled us away from our bags with a smile and a "Don't worry - we are all Catholic here!" He showed us to the parish hall where we were quickly introduced to the hospitality of our new parish family: hot cups of coffee were placed in our hands, and bins of biscuits (cookies) and fruitcake were opened. Another group of pilgrims staying at St. Joseph's was from Chile. A couple of them joined us for coffee and friendly (if disjointed by the language barrier) conversation. The extend of my understanding of the chat was limited to the fact that one guy gave the other a sandwich that didn't taste very good.

After a bit we were whisked back to the parish office to meet Patrick, the pilgrims' collective guardian angel at St. Joseph's. Patrick is a ruddy man with cripplingly bad knees who is always smiling and warm and ready to tell you a story. He told us to collect our backpacks, and to prepare to meet our homestay family. The WYD backpacks were pretty nifty and contained a number of odds and ends such as flashlights (torches), ponchos, emergency blankets, litrugy and transport guides, rosaries, bandannas, and other souvenirs.

The family soon came to pick us up. The Sukkar family consists of Robert and Alma (the parents), Mary, a lively though sometimes moody fourteen year old, Stephanie, a vibrant eleven-year old, Christina, a self-described "cheeky" six-year old with the attitude of an eighteen-year old, and the yet-unamed boy in the womb, who won't be named after his father because "there are too many Roberts in the family already". Robert came to Australia as a young man from Lebanon, built up a business, and went back to Lebanon to find a wife. He met and married Alma, brought her back to Sydney, and the rest is history.

The Sukkars own a cozy house in Belmore about two blocks from St. Joseph's, with a rabbit in the backyard named Cocoa and a never-ending supply of Lebonese hospitality flooding from the family's hearts. Their example of charity and love was one of the biggest lessons I took home with me; if they had anything (which certainly wasn't much), it was ours. We were never wanting for food, clothing in an Australian winter we were not prepared for, supplies, love and support.

Alma fed us a lunch of feta cheese, olives, and Lebonese bread and sent us on our way to downtown Sydney for the Opening Mass at Barangaroo (sometimes pronounced "bangaroo" by the locals). We took Mary with us since she was too young to go alone. Unfortunately, this was about the time that jet lag and general exhaustion set in, so I honestly don't remember much about the rest of the night. We went to the Opening Mass, celebrated by Cardinal Pell and of which I remember nothing at all. Afterwards, we were literally so packed by the crowd that we couldn't move and I feared we would be suffocated, but eventually we made it out and back to Belmore. Stephanie and Christina, who vacated their beds and slept in the garage for us, had left their electric blankets on to warm up. Sleep came very quickly. (Below: pilgrims head towards Barangaroo for the Opening Mass)


Monday, July 07, 2008

Stay tuned!

+jmj

My sister and I are currently preparing - at breakneck speed, I might add - for a sixteen-day trip to Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day 2008 and some good, old fashioned sightseeing. Unfortunately, I won't have internet access during the trip, but I bought myself a red journal in which to keep my thoughts during the trip. I will be posting these on my return on the 29th of July. Stay tuned for more ramblings of a Gypsy!

I am ever so excited...this is the first trip overseas since my third to England in 2005, and my first trans-Pacific!