From Australia: Maria’s Diary Concludes

20 July 2008

Maria Brennan is a parishioner at Clifton Cathedral and she’s just began a memorable trip to Australia for World Youth Day (WYD). Maria’s keeping a diary for cliftondiocese.com and this is her tenth and final entry.

We are into the weekend and the final two days of WYD 2008.

On Saturday morning the Pilgrimage Walk took place between North Sydney and the Southern Cross Precinct - to Randwick Racecourse which is a distance of seven km or about three hours. I joined the walk in the city as the whole journey was a bit too long for me. Thank you Liz Stafford for looking after me.

For the main group, walking across Sydney Harbour Bridge was the highlight of the walk.

On arrival at Randwick we set up camp for our night under the stars. Before that we had a candle lit vigil led by Pope Benedict.  Twenty-four confirmation candidates from different countries were introduced to us.

Our sleep-out was cold but fun. I'm looking forward, though, to getting back into my bed tonight!

On Sunday morning we woke early for Morning Prayer. Afterwards Pope Benedict circled the sight in a helicopter and then at 10 o’clock the final Mass began.

This was a very special Mass with beautiful music and prayers and the confirmation of 24 lucky young people. Some 400,000 pilgrims were estimated to be present.

At the end of Mass Pope Benedict announced the next WYD venue as Madrid in Spain.

Tonight Sunday, the Clifton, Plymouth and Portsmouth group met for a final dinner before a free day on Monday and home on Tuesday. We met up with Jacqui and Sally-Anne from Melbourne which was nice.

A big thank you to everyone who made this pilgrimage possible for me. To those who supported me financially and to Ann Fowler and Ronnie Mitchinson at Alexander House who worked tirelessly on the organisation. And of course to Father Kevin Hennessey who has been so kind to me especially yesterday when we walked together.

Lots of love to all.

Maria Brennan

Take a look at our top qulaity video report of the vigial and provided by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in the multimedia panel on the right.

More from Australia.

Maria’s previous diary entry.

Another of our reports from Australia.  Lots more pictures, stories and video from the Bishops' Conference comprehensive WYD website. 

Many more pictures from Total Catholic.

Meet more of our WYD pilgrims.

Maria’s diary in full.