Marie Lint of Old Town was right up front.

Pressed against 4-foot-high portable fencing, she watched as Pope John Paul II cruised by on his way to an open-air Mass at a huge stage in Toronto, where more than 200,000 young people from 170 nations are celebrating World Youth Day.

“It was like he had so much strength, and it was like he was looking out at us and feeding off of us,” said Lint, 17, who is a leader among Roman Catholic youth in Maine.

“It was like, wow! I’m seeing the pope! This is amazing. There’s nothing else like it. I can’t explain it,” she said after the Mass. “It’s just a feeling inside that you get that just is incredible because you’re seeing the pope.”

Indeed, John Paul’s visit to Toronto has seemed to electrify many of the 350 or so young Maine Catholics who have made a pilgrimage to World Youth Day.

It is a week of events focusing on spirituality, reconciliation and relationships, organized months ago but underscored this year by the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked U.S. Catholics, including Maine’s 250,000 parishioners.

The 200,000 World Youth Day pilgrims, ranging in age from mid-teens to mid-30s, are among the church’s most fervent adherents – to the point of preparing for a vigil Saturday night and Sunday morning on the fields where Pope John Paul II will celebrate a public Mass on Sunday.

Most of the young people also planned to watch Friday night as 40 actors participated in a Way of the Cross procession through central Toronto, re-enacting the events leading to the crucifixion of Christ.

After his appearance Thursday night, John Paul took the day off Friday, remaining at his Strawberry Island retreat north of Toronto to have lunch with 14 of the young people, none from Maine. Three of the pope’s lunch companions were from Canada; the others were from Sudan, China, Australia, Peru, Bosnia and Tahiti. Those participating said it would be the highlight of their lives.

The Maine pilgrims tended to speak in similar, dramatic terms about their first glimpse of the ailing 82-year-old pontiff.

“It was awesome!” said Kristen Cyr of Van Buren as she and her three roommates from St. Bruno’s Catholic Church spoke of their experience Thursday night. “It was so emotional. Just seeing him and the state he’s in … Everything just clicked at once that I was seeing the pope. It was like a dream.”

The girls – all 16 years old and from Van Buren – knotted rosaries to trade with pilgrims from other countries as they decompressed from the emotional event. As a repeat of an MTV awards show blared on a hotel television, the girls talked about the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics as if he were a rock star and their grandfather rolled into one.

“Nothing like we’ll ever see again!” said Katie Dumond. “But, there were so many people. It was crazy!”

While parish groups tried to stay together throughout the events, the crowd Thursday night made it difficult. The pope arrived one hour earlier than scheduled, and tight security along the route for the so-called “popemobile” bisected Exhibition Place, separating some young pilgrims from their chaperones.

Lint did not see an ailing pope as he rode by her or as he addressed the crowd.

“He looked very happy and he was glowing so much,” she said.

“His message was beautiful and so true. It really touched us. … I like what he said – ‘If you read the Bible and follow Jesus and be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, then you will have eternal life.’ And that’s so true.”

After attending Mass on Thursday morning, most of the pilgrims from St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Bradley went on ahead to save “some good seats” for the pope’s arrival. Chaperone Tom Nadeau, 43, of Bradley went with another member of the nine-person group to fetch food and water, and wound up separated from the group by the pope’s path.

“We were able to connect back up with our group, but we had to walk about 180 degrees from where we’d been,” Nadeau said. “But it was important to be together as a group, and it was important for me to see the expressions on the kids’ faces when they saw the pope.”

The Maine group was to celebrate Mass with Bishops Joseph J. Gerry and Michael R. Cote on Saturday morning before heading for Downview Park Lands, a former military base, where they are to celebrate Mass with the pope Saturday night and Sunday morning before heading for home.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.