World Youth Day USA Guides Retreat Manual | Page 52

OPENING PRAYER
NOTE TO LEADER: You will need a “prayer

Read the story a second time aloud, and ask:

leader.” This could be you or one of the participants. To

What feeling or feelings are evoked in you as

open the session, the official WYD theme song (in

you listened a second time?

English, Spanish, or Polish, or in the language(s) of the
participants) should be sung (with accompaniment) or

Read the story a third time aloud, and ask:

played (via a recording). Having Bibles and a worship

How does this story apply to your life

aid would be helpful. Before beginning, organize the

right now?

participants into small groups of 3 or 4 people each
After three rounds of short small group conversation,

(especially for the Lectio Divina exercise).

return to the large group.
Opening Hymn
World Youth Day Theme Song,

Leader: This story can help us get to know

“Blessed Are the Merciful”

how to be with others in suffering, following
the example of Christ and those who

Lectio Divina Exercise:

accompanied the paralytic and opened the roof

The Healing of the Paralytic (Mk 2:1-12)

for him. In this Scripture passage, Jesus teaches
us that suffering is not based on “karma” or

Leader: We begin our time together in prayer,

divine retribution, that suffering can be a

reflecting on one of the first stories of Jesus as

consequence of our sins or the sins of others,

recorded in the Gospel of Mark. This story is

that suffering can be both physical but also

placed in the context of Jesus’ great mercy and

spiritual, and that all people have dignity and

compassion which inaugurates his mission in

worth, no matter what others may say or do, or

the world. We will read the passage a first time

what obstacles stand in our way.

and allow you to reflect on it. We will read it
twice more to allow you to fully enter the story.

To conclude, we ask that you call to mind

Consider also all the people in the story, their

anything that you are struggling with or that

words, their actions and reactions, and of

you are suffering from at this time. Pause for a

course, consider how Jesus responds.

moment to collect your thoughts. To begin the
rest of our time together, we lift those struggles

Read the story aloud the first time, and ask:

and sufferings to our merciful Father to whom

Who is the person in the story, or what is the

Jesus has taught us to pray, as we all say: Our

word or phrase that draws your attention as you

Father, who art in heaven… Amen.

first hear these words of Scripture?
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