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Many thousands attend WYD Opening Mass in Krakow

  • Jo Siedlecka

More than 200,000 young people from around the world gathered in Blonia Park, Krakow on Tuesday, for the the official Opening Mass of World Youth Day celebrated by Krakow Metropolitan Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. The congregation included cardinals and bishops from all over the world. There was a 300-strong choir and orchestra.

Just two hours before the Mass there had been a dramatic thunderstorm and heavy rain - but the skies cleared in time for the Mass.

Cardinal Dziwisz welcomed everyone in six languages. Underlining that the WYD participants had travelled from many different places and spoke many different languages, the cardinal said that "from today we will speak to one another in the language of the Gospel ... the language of brotherhood, solidarity and peace".

The liturgy was celebrated in Latin while the Gospel was read in Polish and Old Church Slavonic.

The Fire of Mercy, brought to the site from the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Krakow-Lagiewniki, will burn at all the central celebrations of WYD. At the end of the event Pope Francis will hand it over to representatives of five continents.

"We come from 'every nation under heaven' ... We bring our experience of various cultures, traditions and languages", Cardinal Dziwisz said in his homily during the Mass.

He pointed out that some of the young people who had come to Krakow were from regions of the world that enjoyed prosperity but that "among us are also young people from countries whose people are suffering due to wars and other kinds of conflicts, where children are starving to death and where Christians are brutally persecuted. Among us are young pilgrims from parts of the world that are ruled by violence and blind terrorism, and where authorities usurp power over man and nations, following insane ideologies".

Having come to WYD with personal experience of the Gospel, with fears and disappointments but also hopes, "we can face the challenges of the modern world, in which man chooses between faith and disbelief, good and evil, love and its rejection", Cardinal Dziwisz said.

There was spontaneous applause at the end of the Mass. A number of musicians and singers performed after the Mass - among them a folk group from Zakopane.

Read the full text of Cardinal Dziwisz's homily here: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=30591

More pictures coming soon on ICN's Facebook page.

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