Volume 19, Issue 11-12

Leah Ashman, Age: 19 years

What are you looking forward to the most during your pilgrimage to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney?
I went to the World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne (Germany), so I have experienced what it is like gathered with many young Catholics from all over the world. In Germany, however, I feel that I focused on what was happening around me (the excitement, the people, the events, etc). This time I want to focus on what is happening within me. I look forward to seeing how I can grow closer to God.

What do you hope to take away from this pilgrimage experience?
I hope that by going to World Youth Day in Sydney I can deepen and develop my Christian characteristics. I see that a pilgrimage is a great opportunity to be challenged to show love, patience, kindness and many other fruits of the Spirit. So I hope that in being challenged to choose them (even when it is hard), I strengthen my ability to readily show the characteristics in any part of my life.

What’s the best thing about going on pilgrimage?
 “The best thing about going on a pilgrimage is learning to laugh when things go wrong instead of get annoyed. When I was in Germany, the group I travelled with used an acronym ‘POPE’, which stood for Part of Pilgrimage Experience. So whenever anything went wrong we would remember that it was all part of a pilgrimage experience!”