By Ana Rodriguez Soto - Florida Catholic newspaper
Archbishop Thomas Wenski catches up with St. Thomas Aquinas High School student Patrick DeFreitas, bundled in his Brasilian flag. Patrick attended World Youth Day in Rio three years ago. He attends Our Lady of Mercy Church in Deerfield Beach.
Flags of many nations adorn the entrance to the monastery of Jasna Gora, which houses Poland's famous Black Madonna.
Radio station at Jasna Gora.
Miami pilgrims walk through the square in Jasna Gora before entering the church to see the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski prepares to celebrate Mass for English-speaking pilgrims in the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, which houses the famous icon of Poland's beloved Black Madonna. Beside him is an Orlando seminarian who studies in Miami, Deacon Edwin Cardona.
The icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna who has protected Poland for centuries.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski listens as Rosemarie Banich, director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, proclaims the first reading at the Sunday Mass, July 24, in the chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
St. Sebastian parishioner and Cardinal Gibbons grad Marcus Mickey leads the response to the psalm during the Mass.
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preaches the homily at the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa inside the monastery of Jasna Gora, Poland.
View of the crowd packed into the main chapel where the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa is kept. The front was filled with concelebrating priests.
Bishop Frank Caggiano, of Bridgeport, Conn., prays during the Mass. He is the U.S. bishops' liaison for World Youth Day.
The World Youth Day cross and banner hang in the sanctuary of the larger church at Jasna Gora, which is located next door to the shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa.
World Youth Day pilgrims from all over the world have begun arriving in Poland.
Students from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale light candles for prayer intentions outside the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Simon Rave, one of two young adults from St. Sebastian Parish in Fort Lauderdale who traveled to World Youth Day, looks at the innumerable rosaries and other items that have been left as promises to obtain Our Lady of Czestochowa's intercession.
A glimpse of the innumerable rosaries and other items that have been left as promises to obtain Our Lady of Czestochowa's intercession.
Students from St. Thomas Aquinas High School tour the chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
People also have left crutches as signs of miracles and prayers answered through Our Lady of Czestochowa's intercession.
Evening view of a portion of Cloth Hall in Krakow's Old Town, the city's central square and the site of many of World Youth Day's folkloric and cultural events.
Countdown clock to World Youth Day in Krakow's main square.
Pilgrims and locals walk the streets of Old Town in Krakow.
The spires of St. Mary's Basilica overlooking the main square of Krakow's Old Town.
Photography: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC
JASNA GORA, Poland | On his first trip outside the U.S., Marcus Mickey got the honor of a lifetime.
The 18-year-old graduate of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale proclaimed two readings (the psalm and the epistle) inside one of the most visited shrines in the world: Our Lady of Czestochowa.
He stood beneath the icon of Poland’s beloved Black Madonna as a multitude of people, standing shoulder to shoulder, looked on, and an endless stream of devotees, many walking on their knees, snaked their way around him.
“My knees were shaking,” Mickey told his excited friends a few minutes later. “There were so many bishops and tall hats.”
Indeed, less than a foot away from the ambo where he stood sat six American bishops — from Camden, N.J., Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y., Springfield, Mass., Bridgeport, Conn., and Fargo, N.D. — not to mention four dozen priests and Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who celebrated the Mass July 24.
Mickey volunteers as lector, altar server and extraordinary minister of holy Communion at St. Sebastian Church in Fort Lauderdale. He is one of two young adults from the parish who traveled to World Youth Day with the Miami archdiocesan group. The two joined the 27-member group from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale.
They and the other archdiocesan pilgrims spent the day touring the monastery of Jasna Gora, home to members of the Pauline community that was founded there in the 1300s. The crowds made movement sluggish: Polish families on a Sunday outing as well as lines of young people from all over the world already in Poland for World Youth Day.
But Rosemarie Banich, the archdiocesan director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, said the crowds were just as big on a weekday in February, when she came to prep for the pilgrimage.
In his homily, Archbishop Wenski called Jasna Gora — translated as “mountain of light” — “the spiritual lung of Poland, where Poland draws its breath.”
He noted how for centuries — through invasions and occupations, Nazism and Communism — “many people of simple faith came here to ask Mary to intercede for them.”
“The witness of the Polish people is an example of the power of that intercession,” Archbishop Wenski said. “The prayer of the Polish people did not go unheard.”
As for Mickey, he has a date pending with Michael McCormick, St. Thomas Aquinas theology teacher and World Youth Day chaperone. It was McCormick who chose him after Banich asked for a student to read at the Mass.
“You owe me big time,” McCormick said, inviting himself to a steak dinner.
Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC
St. Sebastian parishioner and Cardinal Gibbons grad Marcus Mickey proclaims the second reading during the Mass as Archbishop Thomas Wenski listens.
