There and Back Again: A Pilgrim's Tale

Around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 6th, our family arrived safely home from an 18 day pilgrimage that led us to the Land of Divine Mercy: Poland.

Pilgrims from China wanted a picture with us! I wasn't sure if it was because of the tall lady, the white skinned children with light hair and blue eyes (this happened at the Grand Canyon, too!), or because there were so many children!

It would be impossible to recount the many adventures, misadventures, and spiritual experiences of this incredible event in our lives: World Youth Day 2016. Suffice it to say it will take long reflection to fully realize the fruits of such a sojourn. But since so many of you were following our journey and not so many of you were able to follow us on our Facebook Page (Family Fiat: World Youth Day 2016), I wanted to assure you that we did make it there and back again safely, though we are not quite the same people that left you three weeks ago. (That's a good thing, I suppose).

If it's alright with you, I will use this article space over the next few weeks to talk about some of the sights and insights that came of this trip. Every single day was a challenge, a surprise, and a blessing. I began to see that my guardian angel was the best tour guide I could possibly have relied on. We were almost always in the right place at the right time, if we could open our eyes to see it.

Among the early events of our trip: Visiting a site in Poland that is host to an approved Marian apparition and a spring of water that has similar stories of healing as Lourdes in France. This was Gietrzwald. We happened to be there on the day of a festival in honor of World Youth Day pilgrims, and we were invited to join. Win-win-win!

Here is the post I shared about Day 3 of our pilgrimage on our Family Fiat site:

Do you know the song, "Dayenu"? It is a Hebrew song praising God. The word means "enough." It would have been enough, the song says if God had simply brought us out of Egypt, and not done anything else. It would have been enough if he had just given us the Torah, and not fed us with the manna. And on and on and on it goes.

I am titling day three of our pilgrimage, "Dayenu Day."

It would have been enough I just got out of bed this morning. It would have been enough had to be woken up and found breakfast somewhere, instead of finding out that we were really at a bed and breakfast with an incredible spread. It would have been enough if we had just gotten a ride to Giertzwald, since we had expected to walk both ways. Instead they insisted on picking us up as well.

The tree and spring where Mary appeared 

It would have been enough simply to walk the beautiful path down to the healing spring, but there was also a mountain path where we drank in the air filled with the scent of balsam trees and prayed our rosary together in the Polish countryside that Pope Saint John Paul II loved so much.

It would have been enough if we had just come across the most beautiful Stations of the Cross we had ever seen and prayed that together while climbing up the hill, but as we were making our way around we discovered that in this field at 3 p.m., the hour of Mercy, there would be Holy Mass...

The 13th Station: Jesus is laid in the arms of His mother. 

And that Holy Mass was to be part of the festival for young people from around the world who have come to this diocese in preparation for World Youth Day. And they welcomed us.

Mass in the field at Gietrzwald 

And there was ice cream. And cotton candy the size of Leah's head. And the day isn't even over yet. On and on and on it goes.

Dayenu, Lord. Dayenu.