Monday, June 20, 2016

Greetings from Melbourne

I'm waiting for my flight back to Hong Kong at Melbourne airport and can't help but think back to my first World Youth Day in 2008 to Sydney, Australia. It was a memorable trip of many firsts.

It was one of the first couple travel trips outside of Canada without my parents that would infect me with wanderlust. The other one had been four years ago in Cuba, though early childhood road trips up to Northern BC will forever be when the travel bug had first bit. That seeking for something we have never seen before is something I relate to how our hearts are restless until they rest in the Lord [Restless - Audrey Assad]. Wherever I go, it always feels like visiting a grand home, both majestic yet intimate, when I visit a new church [Right Here Waiting For You - Richard Marx]. The cathedral in Melbourne Central Business District is breathtaking with statues of saints scattered outside the main building joining it with the Presbytery. I can't wait to have my breath taken away by the churches in Poland (and Prague and Rome afterwards) [Take My Breathe Away - Celine Dion].

St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, VIC, Australia
WYD 08 was the first time I asked our Father what was the meaning of the Eucharist. How could He be a piece of unleavened bread? I remember at one of the WYD week events where so many youth gathered together, I got the chance to go to Confession with a young priest just sitting in a theatre with movable cushioned audience chairs. He told me to just meditate on Love, with a capital L. To just ask our Lord, to help me understand how the Eucharist = Love. From that moment on, the Holy Spirit gave me operative grace to get more intimate with our Lord through the Mass and the Sacraments, which has given me more [Fight Song - Rachel Platten] gumption in the past few years through ripples of small struggles than I could have ever imagined to ask for.

"Ask and You Shall Receive". Our paths are definitely unique, and we are made to be saints, with every hair on our head counted before we were born. God has definitely made this message clear to me this past year, helping me understand that what seem like "errors" or "messiness" are simply part of the art of life strengthening His plan. Still unknown what tomorrow may bring after I finish my thesis in terms of my next career, I have a newfound confidence that "His ways are not our ways", but it is the best way. TRUST in Him who Loves us perfectly because He IS Love [Lord, I Need You - Matt Maher].

Can't wait to see you all in Krakow and to observe and hear what He is planning in each and every one of your lives, my fellow WYD 2016 travel buddies. Off to board my plane now!