Tuesday, June 24, 2008

What can you expect to see?

We are only 13 days away! I want to thank everyone who came yesterday. For those who didn't please feel free to keep in contact so you know what is going on.

I wanted to share a few pictures of the sights you may see.


Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge - We will walk across the bridge on the way to the Papal Mass.

Sydney Skyline- The boat in the picture was massive!


Darling Harbour - This is where the Pope will come into the city




Wollongong!


Bondi Beach - A place not to miss





I have never had trouble making new friends.
More pics to come in the next few days. Let your family and friends know about this blogsite. We will keep it updated throughout the pilgrimage!














Tuesday, June 17, 2008

From an Experienced World Youth Day Pilgrim

I am going to World Youth Day because pilgrimages always end up being life changing experiences for me, World Youth Days in particular. There's something about combining world travel with a deep religious experience that speaks to the soul in ways that little else does. For me, the 2005 in Germany was a big jump, especially being from a small town where most people will never take a trip to Europe. Waking up in a house where everyone spoke a different language than I did really took me out of my comfort zone. I think it's in leaving our comfort zone sometimes that the Lord can work through us the most. Now granted the language barrier will still exist when we go to Australia but I know that the Lord has many things planned for me there, probably most of which will be uncomfortable. But, the bottom line to me is that by experiencing those things and all of the other parts of World Youth Day, I know that I will come back a different, more well balanced person, who is even more prepared to do the work of the Lord.
I have been to World Youth Days in Toronto in 2002 with John Paul II and with Pope Benedict XVI in Germany in 2005.
You know, I don't really look at the things I will be giving up as sacrifices going into this trip because I have already seen with past trips how much the blessings out weigh the sacrifices. Sure I will not be able to see my family and friends during that time and I will not be able to do the things that I like to do in my spare time. I don't let those things hold me back because I put my trust in the Lord, knowing that I would never improve as a person if I did not get out and try new things. This trip will give me an opportunity to make many new friends. Who knows, maybe it will be like in Germany where the family I stayed with was able to come to Michigan and visit my family. The other thing I think about is how I will be able to take this experience and bring a piece of it back to everyone I come in contact with for the rest of my life. Most people we know will never get to do something like this and our testimony can be a small way for them to share in the trip. So with all of those things in mind, the sacrifices seem very small to me.

Friday, June 6, 2008

The Rising of a Star

We only ask you remember all us little people when you hit it big.



Getting ready for this pilgrimage has been CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out that I get to play at WYD and I'm SO EXCITED about it, because it's much better than I could have ever anticipated - my own set! My own chance to share my gifts with the biggest Catholic event in the world!! I feel like one tiny piece of something so grand, that it's incomprehensible. This has been my dream since I started music ministry... nine years ago.

Wow.

But then... I was overwhelmed by the amount of money we needed to raise to get my singers and musicians over there. I had to borrow a couple musicians from another band and it's a great mish-mash of people who can't wait to serve the Lord through music! But it's a lot of money. A LOT of money.

Little miracles keep happening, though. The fact that we were able to get David, my boyfriend and guitarist extraordinare, and Alicia, my sister, and amazing singer, in with our group was awesome... I couldn't believe it and just thanked God that they were able to go! I was so worried that I'd have to play all by myself, and for a youth festival, I didn't think that would sound as good....so Praise Him!

And then, a couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends died. It was so hard. It was really hard for me, because he never heard my CD or saw that I thanked him in the kudos in the liner notes. I wish he would have seen that. His parents gave $2000 towards our WYD fees.... I couldn't believe it. I feel like my friend is very much a part of this trip, even though he's not here with us anymore. God is good, and God makes great things happen out of devastation.

Fr. Will is right... it is SO humbling to ask for money and to be dependent on the generousity of others. But it gives them an opportunity to be part of this as well. I am keeping a list of all the people who have donated towards making this trip possible so that I can pray for them every day of our pilgrimage. Even a priest I knew back when I was a little girl sent me a check! God will provide!!!!

I'm asking for more money this weekend at the Masses - please say a little prayer!!

I can't wait to get to know all of you fellow pilgrims!!!!!!!!!

Noelle Garcia

Pope Speaks about Sacred Heart of Jesus

Pope Benedict recently spoke about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He
encourages Christians to pause to listen to the beat of their own hearts,
and even "more deeply, the beating of a trustworthy presence...of Christ".
As we prepare for Sydney, be sure to stop and listen. Draw near to the
Heart of Jesus and discover a true pilgrim's heart! This Heart loves the
Father and trusts in His care. We ask Jesus to help us to do the same!
To find out more about the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the "traditional
offering prayer" to which the Holy Father refers, check out the
Apostleship of Prayer website: www.apostleshipofprayer.org. Below is the
Holy Father's address. Yours, Fr. Will

"Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this Sunday, the first day of June, I would like to note that this
month is traditionally dedicated to the Heart of Christ, a symbol of the
Christian faith that is dear to the faithful, to the mystics and to
theologians because it expresses in a simple and authentic way the "glad
tidings" of love, summarizing the mystery of the Incarnation and the
Redemption in itself.

Friday we celebrated the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the
third and final of the feasts that follow Easter, after the Most Holy
Trinity and Corpus Christi. This succession of feasts brings to mind a
movement toward the center: a movement of the Spirit that is guided by
God himself. From the infinite horizon of his love, in fact, God desired
to enter into the limits of history and the human condition, he took on
a body and a heart; thus we can contemplate and meet the infinite in the
finite, the mystery of the invisible and ineffable human heart of Jesus,
the Nazarene.

In my first encyclical on the theme of love, the point of departure was
the gaze turned toward Christ's pierced side, of which John speaks in
his Gospel(cf. John19:37; "Deus Caritas Est," 12). And this center of
the faith is also the font of the hope in which we have been saved, the
hope that I made the object of my second encyclical. Every person needs
a "center" in his life, a source of truth and goodness to draw from in
the flux of the different situations of everyday life and its toil.
Every one of us, when he pauses for a moment of silence, needs to feel
not only the beating of his own heart, but more deeply, the beating of a
trustworthy presence, perceptible to the senses of faith and yet more
real: the presence of Christ, heart of the world.

And so I invite everyone to renew his devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Christ in the month of June, making use of the traditional prayer of the
offering of the day and keeping in mind the intentions that I have
proposed to the whole Church. Along with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the
liturgy invites us to venerate the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us
always entrust ourselves to her with great confidence.

Once again I would like to invoke the Virgin's maternal intercession for
the people of China and Myanmar, stricken by natural disasters, and for
those who are dealing with the many situations of suffering, of sickness
and material and spiritual misery that mark the journey of humanity."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Welcome!

Welcome to the Saginaw Pilgrim! The purpose of this blog for the next few months will be to help the 70 people from the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan as they depart on a pilgrimage to Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day. Anyone not going on the pilgrimage will be able to follow the group day by day. You will read posts from some of the pilgrims, listen to their experiences and give your feedback and support to them.

If you are not traveling with us we ask you to be on the spiritual pilgrimage with us. We ask that you prayer not only for our safe traveling, but also ask the Holy Spirit to be upon us. All of us going want to experience God through Pope Benedict, the Eucharist, and the other pilgrims from around the world.

I will be including more pre-trip posts with pictures of the areas we will be and ask some of our pilgrims to contribute some of their personal journeys which are leading them to the other side of globe. So stay tuned.