Volume 19, Issue 11-12

Through this special edition of Kairos, I welcome the many thousands of pilgrims to World Youth Day Sydney who are spending their Days in the Dioceses with us here in Melbourne.

Melbourne is one of the most ethnically diverse cities of the world. The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is the biggest diocese in Oceania, where over a million Catholics reside. Along with our own Melbourne pilgrims and all of us here in the Archdiocese, I know that all our visitors will feel deeply welcomed and blessed here with us over these very important days. This is both my hope and prayer for you all.

With the arrival soon in Sydney of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, along with Catholic youth from all over the world, these weeks will remain special in our hearts and minds for many years to come. It will be a time for us to ‘receive the Holy Spirit’ and be the ‘witnesses’ (Acts 1: 8) to the Lord Jesus Christ in our world today.

So let us start our pilgrimage all together here in Melbourne. May I recommend that our pilgrimage begin in prayer, be a journey in prayer, and end in prayer.

When our pilgrimage begins in prayer it implies that we receive the forgiveness of Jesus, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Our journey is made light when we cast all our sins and cares at the foot of the Calvary Cross and receive the merciful forgiveness of the Father of us all. It means that when we all celebrate the Commissioning Mass on Friday 11 July we receive the grace and nourishment of Jesus, the Word and Bread of Life, for our journey. It means that we prepare ourselves by prayer and fasting. We invoke the angels and saints to accompany us on our way.

Having begun in prayer, we then journey to Sydney in prayer. We pray with our legs! If we travel by bus, in particular, we recall the hardship experienced by many in Australia in these times of great drought. Perhaps we can break our journey and visit some of the churches along the way. As we pass the beautiful Australian landscape we ‘lift up our eyes to the mountains’ (Psalm 121) and thank Jesus for the gift of creation and our responsibilities to be true stewards of creation. Perhaps we could listen to Christian music and ponder together in song and joy the wonder of our shared Catholic Faith. Perhaps the group could pray the rosary together or share morning or evening prayer. The praying of the psalms is a wonderful and ancient pilgrimage way of encountering God.

Once in Sydney, many paths of prayer will open up to you. There will be times of adoration, visits to shrines where veneration of relics of the saints will be possible, and times for Confession. We can pray for our hosts, and the people we are meeting, and our families and friends back home. Of course, the highlight will be to pray with our Holy Father during the Stations of the Cross, the Saturday night Vigil and the concluding Mass at Randwick Racecourse.

As a pilgrim myself, I will be holding each one of you in my own heart and praying for you along the way. My prayer for both our domestic and international pilgrims is that the whole pilgrimage begin, continue and end in prayer.

Peace be with you always!


+Denis J. Hart
Archbishop of Melbourne