ben-e-dicto! (clap clap clap clap clap)

just found out my host family has the internets!!! hooray!

wanted to tell you about a panel discussion session i went to today about the media and the Catholic Church... there were a few panelists that spoke today, namely archbishop chaput, the head honcho from the knights of columbus, the priest who was in charge of organizing wyd in toronto in 2002 (forgot his name!), a law professor and expert on women´s rights and family from catholic university of america and a catholic movie director who just produced a film called, ´¨cristiada.´¨ it was amazing to hear their perspectives about the attention the Church gets--both good and bad--and what they think we as a generation can do to fight secularism in our countries. mainly, authenticity in our Christian witness was the antidote. brings to mind one of my favorite verses which tells us Christians to always be ready to tell people the reason behind our hope in Christ.

i have just a few minutes left here but wanted to share some revelations that i´ve had while taking part in the festivities surrounding world youth day:

1) the Church truly is universal. perhaps this is not a new concept to all of you, so if you have heard this before, please bear with me... but i have always wondered why the Church continues to use latin when celebrating parts of the Mass, particularly the Liturgy of the Eucharist. well, as it turns out, when you get a ton of people together from all sorts of countries, ethnicities and languages together, it can be quite hard to communicate with one another. the beauty of the Catholic Church is that she makes use of a language that all people can understand and participate in, regardless of their native tongue. it all makes sense to me now. all 175+ of us from FOCUS went to the opening Mass for wyd yesterday and while we were in the nosebleeds-of-the-nosebleed section (and were half a mile away from the altar), we could still hear what was going on over the loudspeakers in latin and were able to participate in the Mass. it was an overwhelming feeling to be in the midst of a crowd of that size while praying the Mass in each person´s own native language. we heard german, french, portuguese, spanish and so many other languages all mixing together... and yet, we all said or sung particular parts of the Mass in latin in unison. kind of a real-life experience of what pentecost must have been like! truly mind-blowing how the Church is always changing, yet is ever the same!

2) the entire world is truly represented at wyd! i knew there was a small contingency of youth from my home diocese in lubbock, texas, here at wyd but i had no idea that i´d actually run into some of them! lo and behold, while standing in line during a bathroom break i actually met two young ladies from my hometown! they were superexcited to meet another west texan in spain... it was pretty surreal. then, later on today i was walking down the street to get to an event and someone shouted out ´´hey, texas tech! guns up!´´ a group of teenage boys saw my backpack and they all gave me their guns up! i didn´t have my camera with me but my backpack and i took a picture with them and we exchanged information. i hope they send me the picture, it was pretty amazing to have people from around the world cheering at me about my alma mater...

3) while i love to travel, i am not a big fan of tourists or touristy areas. the myriads of people, the badly coordinated travel outfits, the overpriced ´touristy´ food. yuck. one of the few drawbacks of gathering so many people together in one place.

ok, enough random things... Pope Benedict XVI arrives in madrid tomorrow and we are all so excited! gotta turn in so i can get up early and take the metro in to the city. our host family´s home is about a 40 min subway ride away so i´ve gotta take that into account.

i wish you could all be here! the Church is excited, on fire and ready to be sent out to the world, you can see it on all of the young people´s faces!! whenever there´s a group gathered, it´s common for people to burst into cheers of ¨santo subito!¨ or ¨ben-e-dicto!¨ it´s glorious. :)

i hope to write more later this week before we spend the overnight at quatro vientos airport to celebrate Mass with the Pope on sunday. no promises, but i´ll try. you´re in my prayers... please remember to add the priests, religious, laity and of course the Holy Father in your prayers!

pax et bonum!
-crystal