Well I guess I’ll start with a little about myself. My name is Jesse Nugent and I’m 17 years old. I’m going into year 12 this year at Mazenod College in Victoria and that is how I’ve been involved and associated with the Oblates for the past few years. I don’t go to an Oblate Parish like some of you, so my connection with the Oblates is based on my school life.
Through school, along with Syd Card who is also here, we were selected to represent our school and go along to World Youth Day in Cologne, with the school covering all our costs. It was definitely a trip that I won’t forget, as I got to see a bit of Europe and experience the phenomenon of World Youth Day.
The Oblate Pilgrimage included a trip to France before World Youth Day and Italy after, but because of our school commitments, we were only able to meet up with the group in Germany. This was one of the worrying parts of the trip for us, as the others had already had a week to bond and get to know each other, and we were coming in on an already tight knit group. Fortunately every single person welcomed us and accepted us as if we had been there for the previous week already.
We were able to become closer friends with lots of people while enjoying the sites and scenery of Germany, and experiencing home stay in a small little town called Michelstrombach. The people of this town in Germany opened their homes and hearts to us while we stayed there for an Oblate gathering. While the weather sort of dampened our stay, it didn’t dampen the community basis formed with these people and our own. Many people who ventured to Germany would agree with me that our stay here was one of the most memorable moments of the trip.
But this memorable community building only prepared us for what was to come. The actual World Youth Day and Week was a busy, hectic time, in which we struggled through crowds, and queued for hours for food. While many of us were frustrated, and sometimes even questioned why we had come half way around the world to do this, we had special group talks, where we discussed what had happened in the day, and took our anger or pain out in these discussions. These group sessions allowed us to reflect back on our experiences, and realise how much each of us looked out for one another during the trip. Yes people experienced negative things, but they experienced them as a group, and battled them as a group, almost making the situation turn into a positive thing.
Before leaving for this trip I really had no idea what to expect. I was excited, and had been counting down everyday on my msn name for about 4 months, but while I was excited, I was constantly reminded by my friends that I was going on a religious pilgrimage across Europe, so there was no way I would have any fun. I admit this was in the back of my head before leaving, but once I got there and experienced the world gathering for their faith, it didn’t matter what people had home had said, or what I had thought. Seeing nearly one million people camp out overnight to see the Pope is one of those things that just proves why you believe in what you do.
Religion with a lot of teenagers is a touchy thing, and often an easy target to attack. When you get asked what you did on Sunday, the excuse of being at your aunties birthday lunch every week wears thin. The trip has really made me not care whether people know I go to church, they like me for who I am, or they really don’t like me at all. Once we got back to Melbourne, I got up in front of our 1200 odd students at a school assembly, and told them about the trip. Yes, there were probably a high majority of them sitting there wishing I shut up, or thinking I was a totally idiot. But that didn’t matter to me, I was sharing an experience I had had, and enjoyed.
For our Parish’s January Newsletter, I wrote an article about the trip, sharing the story of Germany with as many as I could. My dad noted that he had read almost the same article in about four other magaznies in the past few months, but to me that didn’t matter. I was challenging myself to share World Youth Day with as many as possible, something which hopefully everyone here will be able to do in 2008.
World Youth Day in Sydney not only means something to us as Catholic Youths of Australia, being able to host many different nations. But it is also significant to us as Oblate Youths, as we will be able to experience the Oblate Youth of the World on our shores. In Germany we attended a festival with 1000 Oblate Youths from around the world. Hopefully in 2008 we will be able to experience the same sort of festival here, where we can blend with other nations, but also have a role behind the scenes, something which we didn’t have in Germany.
Us as the Youth of Australia being able to host others will be something amazing, and something everyone here should look forward to.