Sydney
25 August 2002
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'Lost for words’ in moment with Pope
Adam Morris kneels on a quilt that was given to the Pope
By Marilyn Kerjean
Adam Morris of Canberra was “lost for words” when he was one of 10 young people who received a block of rock salt from John Paul II during the vigil on the second last day of the World Youth Day in Toronto.
“I had been so excited about meeting him and speaking with him, I had even thought of exactly what I was going to say,” says Adam.
“But when the moment came I was lost for words.
“I encountered a peaceful human being who looked tired, yet seemed to be able to give his complete attention to each person who went up to him.”
It was one of several moving and memorable World Youth Day experiences for Adam, who was one of Australia’s two official delegates to the festival.
“Something that Jean Vanier (founder of the worldwide L’Arche movement) said struck me to the core of my being,” he says.
Adam spent four days in the company of Jean Vanier as part of a volunteer group who helped build houses for Toronto’s homeless.
He said that Vanier, the son of a former Canadian Governor-General, spoke of a young woman with severe disabilities who was well looked after but was still very unhappy.
All of her needs were met, but she did not feel needed by anyone else.
Adam thought instantly of his brother Patrick who has 18q Syndrome, a rare disorder where part of the 18th chromosome is missing.
[Characteristic features can include short stature, mental retardation and poor muscle tone, and sometimes visual and hearing impairment, heart defects or other physical abnormalities.]
“I wept,” says Adam, “thinking of my brother and asking myself ‘how does Pat experience being needed in life’? and ‘how does Pat experience this when we are hanging together’?
“I also wept because I know what that feels like (to be needed) and I wept with joy, too, as I had just heard words that tapped into what I believe to be the deepest part of the human heart.”
He says that being a delegate was a privilege and honour. Official delegates were asked to be part of a liturgy group, which involved participating in the Papal rally, the Way of the Cross, the vigil and the closing Mass.
Being on the liturgy group with 150 other young people was an amazing experience of culture, faith and relationship.
“I was humbled by some of the struggles some of my brothers and sisters would share about war, poverty, compulsory service and racism,” says Adam.
“We are sometimes very blessed to be Australian.”
The pinnacle of the visit for Adam was receiving the Eucharist from the Holy Father at the closing Mass.
“I just made out ‘the Body of Christ’ and after a long pause said ‘Amen’,” he says.
“The man on my right told me to consume the Eucharist and move on but I stayed kneeling with my hands out and the Eucharist still on them.
“Then, with a quick movement that surprised me, the Pope put his finger in my hand and pressed down on the Eucharist, saying: ‘You eat’.”
A few minutes earlier Adam had felt humbled by the Pope’s humility when he said: “You are young and the Pope is old and a bit tired.”
Adam travelled to Toronto as part of the combined Canberra and Goulburn archdiocese and Wagga Wagga diocese group with the Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Archbishop Francis Carroll.
They witnessed strong parish life in the Vancouver archdiocese, encountered the first nation people (Canadian indigenous people) and took part in a day of social service.
Some of them spent a day with the Quest Outreach Society, collecting food that would normally be thrown out by grocers and supermarkets. [Quest gives the good food to the homeless and the rest to farmers for compost in return for fresh meat.]
Adam says he and his fellow pilgrims were moved by a sense of how much is wasted, in Australia no less than Canada, and how much we take for granted.
He says he cannot compare his first World Youth Day, when he led a group to Rome in 2000, with Toronto 2002.
He returned from Rome with a strong sense of the global Church and the power of young people.
This time he came away affirmed in what he is trying to do as diocesan youth co-ordinator for Canberra and Goulburn but also challenged to be a greater Christian presence in the world.
“I also take away the realisation that World Youth Day is a reminder of how the whole of our lives is a pilgrimage,” he says.
“The theme of this year’s World Youth Day was: ‘You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world’ (Mt 5:13–14).
“I believe this sums up what the World Youth Days are all about.”