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WORLD YOUTH DAY - JORNADA MUNDIAL DELA JUVENTUD - GIORNATA MONDIALE DELLA GIOVENTU - JOURNEE MONDIALE DE LA JEUNESSE - JORNADA MUNDIAL DA JUVENTUDE - WELTJUGENDTAG

They always say that it is the Journey and not the destination that matters. For one month, I made a pilgrimage all over the world and traveled through time without leaving my room. Going from places to places, in search for the story behind the World Youth Day. World Youth Day has a special place in my heart. It is the event that changed my life forever. Though many of you have similar experiences, mine actually is somewhat typical, ordinary but had a great impact on my views about things on my life and my faith. This is a dream project (like most of the things I’ve done here started from small dreams), and I never realized that it would materialize so soon. The dream of documenting everything that has happened in the past World Youth Days is a big effort on my part and at the same time a journey.

It started when someone in my friendster group announced the WYD of 2008 in Sydney way back last year. When I was making modifications and links on this blog, I stumbled upon a website, which featured the teaser from you tube about WYD in Sydney. I surfed and googled things about WYD, one thing led to another and one morning I just found myself already making this tribute.

Unlike most of the catholic youths who literally attended WYD in every international and diocesan event and had their pilgrimage in every host country, I myself however went online to places I’ve never been before. It was a journey and pilgrimage online. Every click of my mouse took me to websites that featured the WYD through the years. By hitting almost a thousand websites that featured the WYD, it is as if I have already attended all of the events through the years. From stories, testimonies, podcasts, photos, theme songs, logos, news and trivia that these sites offered, I felt that I was there, present in all of the events.

What led me in making this tribute to WYD is not of just a mere obsession, but a purpose in spreading and promoting the Word of God through WYD. In my journey online, I have found that some sites offered only tidbits, some just a summary of what really happened, others a detailed account of their experiences. These things inspired me to gather all of the information available (with credits of course) and put them all into one mini site.

In search for words…

In the process of making this WYD tribute, difficulties were familiar. The first difficulty I had was to understand some websites that are written in other languages such as French, Italian, German and Portuguese. Latin and Spanish were not that difficult because I learned it in my seminary formation. I used some translation service for websites that are not written or encoded in english, but in the process, I found out that the translation is not that accurate. So believe it or not, for a week, I tried to study a crash course online on the fundamentals of French, Italian, Portuguese (which is somewhat similar to Spanish) and German (the hardest language to learn in my opinion). With these crash courses, I was able to understand the glitches in the translation of words by the translation service. I cannot write French and Deutsch (German), but somehow I can understand them. Portuguese is similar to Spanish so its not that difficult, as well as Italian has some words similar to Latin. For example: root word for Truth in Latin and Italian are the same (verita) they only differ in declensions. Saint in Spanish is San while in Portuguese it is Sao. The word forever in Latin is semper while in Italian it is sempre In Spanish the pronoun our is nuestra while in Italian it is nostra. This minor differences in spelling and declensions helped me in understanding the languages. It is only the French and German (including Polish) which really gave me a hard time in understanding, for most of their words are far different from the taxonomies of English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin, but somehow in ethnoliguistics, they all branched out from one of the other.

These led me to believe that Language is not really a barrier in reaching out to different cultures and traditions; it is the Love, Passion and Faith, which do the talking.

In search for photos…

Another difficulty that I had was with the photos. Only the WYD of 2000 (Rome), 2002 (Toronto) and 2005 (Cologne) are to be found abundantly on the net. The photos of the WYD since 1985 up to 1997 are very rare. That is because in 1997, the net is still quite new and only few people have the knowledge of making a personal website unlike today that website development has been rampant even to those who are not formally educated with web development courses. The 1985 (Rome), 1987 (Buenos Aires), 1989 (Santiago de Compostela) and 1991 (Czestochowa) WYD photos were featured in an Italian site which I accidentally found in some google search result. He took the pictures from past publications of the Pontifical Council of the Laity and of the Vatican official Newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and scanned it. I was very thankful when I found the site, that someone has the inspiration to show the world what WYD in 1985 to 1991 looked like. Aside from the above site I mentioned, I also took the liberty of looking for some off line resources of the WYD in 1985 to 1991, which led me to another re-discovery.

The WYDs of 1993 (Denver), 1995 (Manila) and 1997 (Paris) was my only problem. I cannot find on the net specific photos of the events.

Since 1995, I have been keeping an envelope, which contained most of the memorabilia I had from my attendance in WYD 1995 in Manila. I searched my room and my file cabinets, even my mini library for its whereabouts but I never found it. I was assuming that when we moved in here in our new house, the envelope somehow got lost in the garbage. But there was something inside me which told me that the envelope was just somewhere in the premises of our home.

For a day, I searched for the whereabouts of that brown envelope until it occurred to me that I have not unpacked the four boxes of my stuff, which contains documents, and magazine I had when I was studying Physical Therapy. I opened the boxes one by one. Upon opening the third, I was so disappointed of not having found the envelope that I was looking for. My last chance was the last box that was left unopened. I was already losing hope in finding that elusive envelope. Until I opened the last box and to my joy, I found the envelope.

Since 1995 I have not opened it until now. I was so surprised to see everything, which I needed for series. The 200 page book which I both in 1995 that featured photos from the 1995 WYD and my own Photos of the WYD was there. Fortunately, a 1994 magazine by the Pontificie Opere Missionarie (Pontifical Missionary Works) and Popoli e Missione (Population and Mission) entitled “I Care : Gioventi Chiesa Speranza” (I Care: Youth Church Hope) was also in the envelope which contains photos from the 1993 WYD in Denver as well as the 1987-1991 WYDs. Another surprising find was the five issues of “Denver Post Newspaper” which featured rare photos of the 1993 World Youth Day. I got the newspaper when I was in Luneta while waiting for the Vigil. When my group and I were walking towards the main venue, I saw the newspapers that were scattered on the street. As a mild neurotic, I picked them up and took it with me because of my interest in the history of world youth day and maybe because I was considering it as a souvenir. I never thought that after 12 years, it would play an important role in my apostolate here.

The only photos lacking was the 1997 WYD in Paris. I found some photos in the net but they were too little to embed. Until I typed in the google search “Journee de Jeunesse de monde 1997 photos de Paris” (World Youth Day 1997 Photos of Paris) and found this French site which contained several photos of the event. One click led to another until I was able to go about all the search results in google.

The photos were now complete through the grace and providence of God. There is always hope when everything seems to be hopeless.

In search for songs…

The third difficulty that I experienced in making this WYD tribute are the theme songs of each event. In my search for the official theme songs, I never found any actual mp3 or recording of every theme song of each event. There are lyrics offered in the Vatican archives but there were no actual media. Even Limewire proved futile in my search for the songs. The WYD 1995 song was my only possession, which was not even an original rendition, only a remake. The original rendition of the 1995 theme song was recorded and distributed in cassettes (as far as I know), and I have no means of digitally transcribing them in my PC. Up to now, I am still searching for any possible means of transcribing them to mp3 or at least looking for a local computer shop, which offer such service. A friend of mine was able to successfully transfer his rock songs from cassette to CD but that was 2 years ago and he was only using his uncle’s software. Nevertheless, like the language and photo difficulties, which I mentioned earlier, God has His weird ways of providing us what we lack in resources.

I went for a break, waiting for the opportune time when God will provide me with resources. I went to YouTube, Daily Motion and other video sites in search for related videos that I can embed in my series. Until I found a video of WYD 2000 in Rome entitled “I was there” and another video of WYD 2005 Cologne which has the same title. As I watched the two amateur videos, I cannot help but notice the background song that I was hearing. The former video has 2 songs and the latter video has one. When I read the comments, looking for some pertinent information, I found out that most of the background songs were actually the theme songs of the WYD. “Emmanuel” was the multilingual theme song of WYD 2000 in Rome and “Venimus Adorare Eum” rendered in Deutsch (German) was the theme song of WYD 2005. The song that caught my eardrum’s attention was the song “Jesus Christ, You Are My Life” written by a Franciscan Friar for the WYD 2002 in Toronto and has become the official theme song of all WYD since its debut. The song is played every year at international and diocesan levels of WYD. The song generated Goosebumps in me. I acted immediately and looked for links where I can download the songs. I found none except for brief previews of the song on Amazon.com and some CD online stores.

Until destiny led me to a German WYD forum site, which I ardently praise for their noble deed. There I found an embedded MP3 player with all the songs of all the past WYDs. It was providence and the rest was history.

In search for witnesses…

The fourth difficulty that I faced was the testimonies. I want to put some testimonies of people who actually attended the past WYD but some testimonies were only from some years. The older events were never to be found. Then again, an inspiration came into me. Instead of looking for testimonies, why not ask the readers directly on my site for their own testimonies.

So, aside from audio and written testimonies of past WYDs coming from various sites and pod casts (like that of an American priest WYD pod caster and a Canadian based catholic radio station), this site will instead offer a comment area on the last page of this mini site. It will enable young and adult Catholics who attended the WYD through the years, to share their testimonies to the World about their experiences in the event.

In search for syndication…

The last difficulty that I had in my online journey with the WYD was the copyright issues. Some websites are very firm and clear in their stance of copyright infringement and this somehow presented problems on my part. Of the thousand sites that I have surfed in the net and managed to gather information and resources from them, it was a mere impossibility for me (considering my current situation), to spend enormous amount of time in sending each websites individual emails with different contents, language, intentions and specific requests of media, photos and resources in asking their permission. Another factor is that most of the email addresses and links are not anymore existent and some just left their websites undated and lingering in the cyberspace without evidence of updates. Some were even last updated 10 years ago and has never been updated since.

The only solution to my problem is to properly render credits and courtesy to the original authors of some contents here. On the last part of this series, you will find the list of credits and their respective links. I owe each individual, entity and institution my gratitude for their valuable work and noble cause of spreading the spirit of World Youth Day to people around the world.

[Show as slideshow]

In search for gladness…

My heart is filled with joy for this monumental project, in which I gathered here, together with some of my original works, all of the pertinent information and photos of the past and present World Youth Days through the years.

Some contents here are from other websites in which credits goes to their original authors and creators. The graphic designs, personal notes and some multimedia are created by yours truly. If you are interested in copying or downloading some original contents here, please do not hesitate to contact me, I will gladly give you the permission, just make sure that intention is purely journalistic in nature or for private entertainment and collection and that the main goal is to spread the WYD. Or if you are too lazy to contact me, you can just give credits to this site by mentioning or making a link here.

This “World Youth Day Through The Years” OTWOMD research project has three parts

1. The History
2. The Events from 1985 up to present
3. The WYD Experience online

In this regard, I formally welcome you to my Tribute to WYD, WORLD YOUTH DAY: THROUGH THE YEARS. Like the Pilgrim Cross and Pilgrim Icon which journey from nation to nation since 1985 up to this day, I personally invite you to Journey with the rest of the young people from around the world through time on the History of World youth Day, its impact to millions of young people and the renewal it brings to lukewarm souls.

Young People and the Pope: Together!

Pax Et Bonum

Back to WYD Through The Years