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TORONTO – Nikki Ouellette of Van Buren thought twice about coming to World Youth Day.
She was turning 16 this week and wasn’t sure that being amid hundreds of thousands of strangers in a foreign city was how she wanted to celebrate.
“At first, I was kind of hesitant,” she said a few minutes before her birthday officially ended Wednesday. “My birthday’s usually a time I spend with family. But the more I thought about it, I realized that my birthday would be a good time to be by myself and with God.”
Still, her fellow travelers didn’t let the milestone pass unnoticed. They set up a celebration at Toronto’s Hard Rock Cafe for Ouellette, who was given a free dessert as the staff and other patrons serenaded her with the traditional song.
“It was great!” she said. “I got said ‘Happy Birthday’ to by a lot of people who didn’t know me and don’t even speak English.”
About 300,000 Catholics between 16 and 35 have traveled from around the globe to share their faith and receive a message from their ailing spiritual leader, Pope John Paul II, who is visiting Toronto.
Ouellette is one of six teen-agers from St. Bruno’s Catholic Church in Van Buren who made the trip with lay leader Alan Cyr of Van Buren. Cyr, 39, organized the “sweet 16” birthday party.
Earlier, the St. Bruno delegation spent the afternoon trading tiny lobster, potato and blueberry pins for similar items with delegates from other nations. They gave knotted rosaries they had made during the two-day bus trip from Maine to excited Colombian pilgrims, according to Cyr. The group also appeared on ETWN, the Catholic television network, to thank their parish members for helping them raise the money for the trip, which cost about $800 per person.
Most World Youth Day pilgrims spent Wednesday morning in catechesis, or teaching sessions, all over Toronto. Many met in 129 parishes throughout the city and surrounding suburbs, divided according to language. Each session was led by one of the 500 bishops, archbishops and cardinals attending.
Ouellette and the more than 200 Maine Catholics staying in a Toronto hotel attended a session led by Bishop Wilton Daniel Gregory of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill. The rest of the 150 pilgrims in the Maine delegation attended sessions in churches near the schools and a private home where they are billeted.
The bishop from southern Illinois spoke to about 5,000 youth Wednesday morning in a large hall at Exhibition Place on Lake Ontario. He emphasized the first half of the World Youth Day theme taken from Matthew 5:13-14 – “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.” Thursday morning’s catechesis was to focus on the second phrase.
“When people become ill or are hurt or injured and rushed the hospital,” said Gregory, “one the first things nurses and doctors do is to give them a saline solution intravenously. … The faith of young people like you is the saline solution for today’s world.”
The bishop’s words impressed Ben Zmistowski of Old Town. The 16-year-old reflected on Gregory’s analogy and how he could apply it in his day-to-day experiences back home with friends and fellow parishioners at Holy Family Catholic Church.
“I have to be a good role model for being a Christian for my friends and for other people, not necessarily preaching to them but just doing what’s right,” said Zmistowski as he wound down by playing cribbage at the end of the day. “And when they ask me to do something that’s not right, do not do it.”
At the morning catechesis, one unidentified pilgrim not from Maine brought up the background against which this year’s World Youth Day is being played out. He asked the bishop how young people should respond to the sex abuse crisis in the church. Gregory is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and shepherded the new policy concerning the handling of allegations of clergy abuse through the bishops’ recent Dallas conference.
“I’m suggesting charity and love and pride in who we are as Christ’s people,” Gregory responded. “Don’t ever let anyone make you believe that the broken, sinful, faulty parts of the church are the whole church or a reflection of who Jesus was.”
Young people thunderously cheered the bishop’s words.
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