squished in the crowds at WYD Madrid

17/08/11

Catechesis in an overflowing church, waiting in the bumper crowd, again squished to see Christopher West and a flamenco depicting the Gospel story – the fatigue continues!

This morning we attempted to go to St Teresa’s for a catechesis session. When we arrived it was already overflowing and people were already sitting in all the spare ground space. We had our ticket in – the Archbishop with us! Although it was very tight – a little spot between the wall and pews. It was far too hot though and it was a struggle to hear and concentrate. The main message the Bishop gave was about names – how once we know someone’s name we can start to build relationship with them, you can also gain control of someone/thing (e.g. your pet, once you give it a name). God didn’t give us his name until Jesus, so now we can have a personal relationship with him.

We had a nice lunch in the park and then went to the Christopher West presentation. We arrived at around 3 pm for a 4 pm start and there was a little line, very spacious. We started chatting with some Canadians who had loved Wyd Sydney. Over the next hour the line became more and more busy and many people started pushing in from all directions. Then the sardining occurred. We were literally squashed in from all sides attempting to hang onto our group which became a long line with our heads pointed up for air most of the time. Somehow I ended up at the front of the line and after an  hour and a half got in – but only by myself, the others kept getting held back. Thankfully Maddie made it in and we got an end seat together down the front just in time for the start of Christopher West. As usual his talk was inspiring, whenever I listen to his talks I feel like I’m burning inside, it is always so profound and relevant. Some of his analogies today concerned choosing between  the starvation gospel – if it’s bad don’t think about it and supress it, the greasy chicken nuggets gospel – you know it’s not that good for you but it’s better than starving and it has quick reward or the banquet gospel – eating at the table of our Lord. He also had a guest sand artist that created the gospel story with sand images – was really impressive.

Later in the evening it was Spanish flamenco time – illustrating the gospel story. Craig, Abraham, Maddie and I set out to find it and did in the park with a rock backdrop. We even held pretty seated viewing positions. Unfortunately when it actually began we couldn’t  see over the taller people sitting in front so we retreated to the back and stood –much better view especially behind some short nuns. The flamenco was good but as we couldn’t really follow the Spanish we got lost a little in the story, and the tapping wasn’t as fast as flamenco in Barcelona. We spent half the night messaging Michael as we couldn’t spot him and he us even though we stood right under a lamp post. We eventually worked out that he was at a different flamenco.