By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
ROME — Camped on inflatable pool floats and airplane pillows — and surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other young adults with their own assortment of sleeping bags, tarps, and makeshift shelters — sisters Maritza, Daisy, and Azeneth Ramos roughed a night in the fields of Tor Vergata in Rome to close out the celebration of the Holy See’s Jubilee of Youth.
The overnight set up was far from comfortable for the sisters. Ants crawled across the ground; dust that had been kicked up by thousands of feet clung thickly to the air; and the sounds of other pilgrims talking and moving and singing made sleep elusive… and then it rained. Still, the sisters said, the experience — a prayer vigil with the Holy Father leading into Sunday Mass the next morning — was totally worth the sacrifice.
“With this Jubilee only happening every 25 years, I feel very privileged to have had this opportunity to be here,” said Maritza, who along with her sisters is a parishioner of St. William Catholic Church in Greenville.
The Ramos sisters, who journeyed to Rome with a delegation of pilgrims from the Diocese of Dallas, were three among the more than a million travelers who made their way to the Eternal City for the Jubilee of Youth. Part of the larger Jubilee Year of Hope, the Vatican-hosted event united young people from around the globe for a week of prayer and celebration.
“Being here with people all over the world is very beautiful,” Azeneth said. “The Church is united together.”
Jubilee events
The Jubilee of Youth, the largest Jubilee Year event so far, buzzed with the energy of collective thousands as it kicked off its week of festivities with a Holy Mass of Welcome in St. Peter’s Square July 29.
“It’s super energetic. There’s a lot of chanting and singing, and a lot of people brought their country’s flags,” Paloma George, a Diocese of Dallas pilgrim from Christ the King Catholic Church, said, describing the atmosphere as the crowds entered Vatican City for the Mass. “You would think that we’re going into a music festival.”
The Mass, which was celebrated by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, was one of several Jubilee of Youth events throughout the week. From July 29 through 31, pilgrims had the opportunity to participate in “Dialogue with the City” events as part of the Jubilee of Youth program. The travelers chose from 70 events hosted across the city, including offerings like Duc in Altum’s theatrical representation of St. Teresa of Lisieux’s life and the Missionaries of Charity’s Mother Teresa of Calcutta Exhibition, among others. As part of the program, pilgrims traveling with the Diocese of Dallas venerated relics of Bl. Carlo Acutis and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, both soon to be canonized as saints of the Catholic Church.
“The relic was probably about two feet in front of me,” Mitchell Schuck, a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Dallas, said as he recalled his experience visiting the Church of San Marcello al Corso to venerate the first class relic of Bl. Acutis’ pericardium. “We got the opportunity to write our prayer intentions down, place them in the basket, actually kneel right in front of the relic.”
About halfway through the program of Jubilee festivities, on Aug. 1, a Penitential Day marked a reflective moment for the Jubilee goers — a pause in the midst of a whirlwind week. Hosted within the Circus Maximus, an expansive arena used for chariot racing in Ancient Rome, the Penitential Day was set aside for Jubilee pilgrims to receive the sacrament of reconciliation. More than a thousand priests heard confessions that day.
“When I sat down for confession, it was definitely on my mind, like ‘Wow. I’m really doing confession here at Circus Maximus,” Christopher Gasper of Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Plano said. “There were thousands of people going to confession… That was really neat to experience.”
The Jubilee of Youth wrapped at Tor Vergata with a prayer vigil, Aug. 2, and closing Mass, Aug. 3, both led by Pope Leo XIV. Flags from countless nations — Egypt, Brazil, Palestine, South Korea, and France a few among them — waved in the air, as a mass of smiling pilgrims that reached further than the eye could see chanted and danced and sang under the hot sun and blue skies overhead. The atmosphere at the vigil was bustling, filled with movement and chatter, as the hundreds of thousands of attendees set up for the night; but as darkness fell and a Holy Hour of eucharistic adoration led by the Holy Father began, the air of the place changed.
“Before, you would hear a lot of people just walking; you would see people sleeping or setting up,” Maritza recalled, “but it was just complete silence for the duration of the time that we had with the Blessed Sacrament.”
The Holy Father, Diocese of Dallas pilgrims noted, remained kneeling in prayer before the monstrance for the entire stretch of adoration.
“Everybody just took the time to sit and rest with the Lord,” Maritza said.
As morning approached, the pilgrims united in prayer with the pontiff once again for the closing Mass, also hosted outdoors at Tor Vergata.
“Waking up early and then having Mass with a million other Catholics was just a reminder of how universal our Church is,” Schuck said, noting the sheer “number of youth and their enthusiasm and their thirst for the faith.”
Although the Diocese of Dallas pilgrims noted the challenges that come with traveling across the world and navigating crowds of hundreds of thousands of other young people on pilgrimage, they shared that the Jubilee of Youth was a once in a lifetime opportunity to gather with the universal Church in a special way.
“All the pilgrims came with a lot of sacrifices — not sleeping a lot, not sleeping well — just so many sacrifices; but in the end, it’s all worth it,” Daisy said. “I saw how the Church was united.”
Cutline for featured image: A delegation of 16 pilgrims participated in the Diocese of Dallas Jubilee of Hope Pilgrimage to Rome, July 26-Aug. 6. The group, which included parishioners from churches across the Dallas diocese, traveled to the Eternal City to join Pope Leo XIV and more than a million other pilgrims in the celebration of the Jubilee of Youth, one of the Vatican’s Jubilee Year events. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
