August 12, 2011

Local young adults making pilgrimage to Spain for WYD

By Brandon A. Evans

Forty-one young adults from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the neighboring Diocese of Lafayette will be joining three priest chaplains on a pilgrimage to Madrid for World Youth Day.

Their pilgrimage begins with a 6:30 a.m. Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in downtown Indianapolis on Aug. 13, and will end when they arrive home on Aug. 22.

During the pilgrimage, the young adults will participate in official World Youth Day events, including catechetical sessions, concerts, talks and a special Mass for U.S. pilgrims. The weeklong event culminates on Aug. 21 with a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

The pilgrims, who include four archdiocesan seminarians, will also take a day trip to Avila, Spain.

Updates and photographs from the trip will be available throughout the week at www.archindy.org/wyd or by following twitter.com/IndyCatholic1.

Visitors to the blog are encouraged to submit prayer requests via the comment boxes for the pilgrims to take with them.

This is the first time that the archdiocese is taking a group made up exclusively of young adults—graduates of high school who are age 18 and older—as opposed to past years when high school students were included.

Father Rick Nagel, director of the archdiocesan Office of Young Adult and College Campus Ministry, Catholic chaplain at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and administrator of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis, said that this was done to return to the original spirit of World Youth Day, which was founded by Blessed Pope John Paul II as an event for young adults. †

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