WYD Krakow: Day 3

While we were touring Wieliczka, a famous salt mine outside of Krakow, I came to realize that one of the many gifts possessed by the Poles is their ability to transform the ordinary and the mundane into something quite beautiful. The mine itself, with its various statues and carvings (including a functioning chapel) etched out of salt, is one such example of the ability of our Polish hosts to appreciate, discover, and create beauty in the world.

The opening mass for World Youth Day that was celebrated this evening was filled with inexpressible beauty. In a rather ordinary park, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered as the Body of Christ. Various letters and words formed melodic prayers and hymns of praise in Polish, French, Latin, and English. Strangers from all over the world were brought together in a colorful mosaic of language and culture. Very basic gifts of bread and wine were transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. 

I cannot put into words the overwhelming sense of beauty I experienced during that opening liturgy. This is a mystery of my heart. But I suppose what had stirred within me was a deep gratitude for the very tangible ways in which God shares all that is good and beautiful and wonderful:

God's beauty is present in the diverse faces of all those pilgrims gathered from all over the world; God's beauty is alive in the faith of my fellow pilgrims from the Scranton Diocese; the gift of God's beauty is also given in surprising ways, such as when my friend Tom E. from Michigan found me in a crowd yesterday by throwing his orange Peruvian hat at me. And of course, what is more beautiful than the gaze of Jesus, the very gaze of God's mercy?