Coming Down from the Mountain: Accompanying Pilgrims on the Return Home
Nourishing the pilgrim’ s experience of discipleship after WYD requires intentionality and forward thinking. Without effort on the leader’ s part, WYD may become an isolated experience that does not lead a pilgrim to a deeper faith in Christ.
WYD is meant to strengthen the faith of pilgrims. Like Peter, James, and John at the Transfiguration, World Youth Day pilgrims have a mountaintop experience and they may want it to last forever. But Jesus reminded Peter, James, and John – and he reminds pilgrim travelers today – that they cannot live on mountaintop experiences alone. Returning home to the United States does not mean that everything is finished; rather, leaving Panamá is just the beginning of the next phase in the pilgrim’ s lifelong journey of faith.
In Luke’ s account of the Transfiguration, when Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah, he“ spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem”( 9:31) – pointing towards the work that still needed to be accomplished after this moment of glory. WYD likewise is meant to give pilgrims direction and formation for the tasks they lay ahead of them. In order to put into motion those dreams and hopes begun in Panamá, the pilgrim must come down from the mountain. He or she ought to look forward to the next step of the journey, but leaders may need to accompany and support someone through the melancholy that can descend when the excitement is over. Helping pilgrims to see WYD as a stop along the way instead of the end goal will help to ensure that the pilgrimage is an encounter with God that bears fruit. The pilgrimage leader’ s work, then, is not over when everyone is back in their home; the work continues.
Go Make Disciples One of the ways to assist pilgrims in the return experience is to introduce them to the understanding that they are missionaries. Keeping the 2019 WYD theme in mind, the pilgrims are to be servants of the Lord, saying“ yes” to God’ s will as they are sent forth. In Pope Francis’ final homily in Rio de Janeiro at the Closing Mass of the last WYD, he sent pilgrims forth with the theme of the 2013 encounter:“ Go … and make disciples of all nations”( Mt. 28:19). He said:
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