So there was this guy carrying around an official-looking video camera the first day of catechesis, and he was sitting just in front of the ambo and recording Bishop Anthony. He’s the bishop of Parramatta in Australia and was key in helping with World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney.
Well, I found the video, lol.
I’m an advocate for sharing what we experienced…hence this blog, haha. Some of the stuff that we learned from bishops and Pope Francis are useful for the rest of the Church. 🙂
We are thirsty! We must be the “Go Make Disciples!” generation!
Apparently Gabe had gotten an email from Life Teen that Matt Maher would be coming to World Youth Day. I saw Matt Maher tweet/status about how he got invited to come perform. Because we’re all big Matt Maher fans, we made the sincere effort to try and go see him live in concert. That ended up being Wednesday night during our stay in Rio.
We coordinated with our JMJ tour guide and the Dallas group to make sure we could get over to the venue where Matt Maher would be playing. This entailed going to the bus stop near our hostel. Unfortunately, we waited a long while for the right bus to come along. Why did we wait long? Because the route from Botafogo (where our hostel was) to RioCentro (the convention center where Matt Maher would be performing) was about ~20+ miles away. And it was terribly traffic. In fact…we waited an hour for the right bus to come. And then it was an hour and a half on the bus just getting over there! The bus trip was not comfortable because we were packed. But! We made the best of it. We sang a lot of songs on the bus, including many rock, Catholic, and Disney classics.
We arrived at RioCentro and it was raining pretty heavily. That didn’t deter a lot of other pilgrims because when we arrived at the building, there were quite a number of other pilgrims present. We walk inside and see a small stage just within the entrance. A Brazilian kids group starts to perform on stage, and they were all dressed in brightly colored, clown-ish clothing. Clearly not Matt Maher, even though one of our group members thought it was, lol. We actually stuck around for a bit while Gabe and Jason were looking up on their phones when/where Matt Maher would be performing.
We learned that there was another stage on the opposite end of the convention center, so we head over there. Apparently that ended up being some Brazilian boy band group called Tattoo. They had crazy LED lights and lasers or something. Nuns were dancing to their broken English music. Maybe some of our guys decided to dance to their songs. Meanwhile, Gabe and Jason were frantically trying to figure out where and when would Matt Maher perform. Via Twitter, Gabe found out that Matt Maher would be arriving late because traffic was so bad, and that he would be performing at that convention center’s Pavilion 4.
Plot twist.
We were at Pavilion 3 currently. Pavilion 4 was that small little stage we saw when we first walked in. We frantically head over there! And we got there just as he was setting up on stage, a few minutes before he started his first song!
The cool thing was…our SEAS/STA group and the Dallas group were the only English-speaking groups present. The rest were random Brazilians. We were able to be practically front row to the stage! I mean, just look at the videos below!
Matt Maher played some popular hits, though noticeably absent was our crowd favorite, Hold Us Together. It was really cool to really rock out to his songs and to be so close! I found it amusing that whenever he would speak in the microphone, the Portuguese translator would imitate Matt.
Here’s 90% of the concert! (let me know if these don’t work)
That awkward moment when we tried looking for a Matt Maher concert at the convention center…and ended up going to some Brazilian One Direction-type of concert (the band was called Tattoo, lol). So, while trying to figure out when/where Matt Maher was going to perform…might as well enjoy the current concert and dance, right?
During the opening ceremonies to World Youth Day, they had musical groups performing. One of them was a Catholic praise band from India who sang these catchy songs in English and all their songs had this Indian feel to it, Pretty cool. They’re called Rex Band.
Tyler decided to get into it by doing the Catholic Dance. Amelia joins in too! Not recorded is how later on…the other group behind them also joined in! And then some more from our group joined in too! Myself included!
Also, I like how Jason loyally holds our flag and looks on.
I think every Christian can understand the idea of singing to and for Jesus. Through song we praise and worship our Lord and Savior. Walk into any Christian church on a Sunday and you’ll find the congregation (and choirs, if applicable…though usual) singing hymns and songs praising the glory of God.
And praise God that we’re able to hear such songs outside the walls of our churches. One of the ways we can do that is through the radio. I know of several Christian/family radio stations here in north Texas. Obviously, in order to fill the air waves with Christian music…you need Christian music artists. And I’m sure we can list all our favorites!
From what it seems like to me (and I could be wrong), a lot of Christian music artists also double as worship leaders. And by “worship leader” I mean they lead congregations/groups of people in worship of our Lord through song whether they’re singing/playing solo or with a band.
Thank goodness we have such people who help us focus our minds and hearts towards the Lord through praising and worshipping in song! And oftentimes, we, the congregation, really feel the power of praise in song. Like, it gives more sense of legitimacy and intention in our prayer through song. St. Augustine is often quoted in saying:
He who sings well, prays twice.
(though apparently he didn’t really say that exactly, but…that’s a famous mis-quote).
So if Christian music artists and worship leaders help bring our focus and attention towards God through song, and then there’s that whole Gospel-according-to-Matthew idea about Jesus being present whenever two or more are gathered in His name…then yes, combining these two help bridge our prayers to Jesus, Who is present because two or more are gathered (unless our churches consist of only 1, =P).
Now, I have to ask the awkward question…
What would it look like if I were to take a famous Christian artist/worship leader leading a large congregation, and place that artist/worship leader, hypothetically, in front of Jesus Himself? Like, Himself in the flesh. Like, able to reach out and touch. Would the focus of the Christian music artist/worship leader be different? Would we, the congregation, have a different, perhaps more profound, sense of our praise and worship knowing that Jesus is truly there in front us?
(you can fast forward to ~4:20 for the song to start…the first 4 minutes are exactly what the big screens of Copacabana Beach were showing so you’ll see what I could only see during Saturday night’s vigil of World Youth Day…Pope Francis had asked for silence…after that, some brief reflections in different languages…then Matt Maher sings)
I think that YouTube video helps answer that awkward question.
So yeah, I was there on the beach! So was Jesus. So was Pope Francis. So was Matt Maher. So were 3+ million of my fellow Catholic brothers and sisters. I think the lyrics of Matt Maher’s “Lord I Need You” really resonated with a lot of us that night since Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist, and we all recognized the necessity of God in our lives. And looking at various comments on YouTube videos after the fact…it seems as though this was many people’s favorite moment/song through all of World Youth Day. And I agree!
This scene is especially striking to me because here we have a famous Christian music artist and worship leader on his knees facing Jesus literally and singing to Him literally…and focusing on Him literally…yet at the same time leading the 3+ million of us to do the same. At slightly higher elevation is Pope Francis, the successor of St. Peter, sitting and adoring in reverence with his helpers kneeling…all of them before Jesus elevated above everyone else. Without a doubt, with everyone facing towards the Eucharist, the focus was definitely on Jesus. It makes it easier to worship and focus on our Lord when you can see Him. Even if I didn’t know what was going on…to see Matt Maher kneeling as if facing something (not the crowd)…I would begin to ask what it is exactly (or rather, who) he is facing and why?
Maybe the YouTube video doesn’t convey the profoundness of singing this song to Jesus while kneeling…maybe this blog post doesn’t even convey that…but, I assure you, as a first-hand eyewitness to these moments…this experience was profound but … normal to me.
This was profound to me because I was sharing this moment with surrounded by, truly, the universal Church from all over the world. And to kneel there together adoring Christ, recognizing my need for Him…I couldn’t help but be grateful for the gift of spending that hour adoring Him with humility. But this experience at World Youth Day was also normal for me because I’m a fan of Matt Maher, and I listen to his music often (maybe just a few days earlier I saw him live in concert in Rio de Janeiro). And I often go to adore Christ in the Eucharist on my own, usually after work or before/after Mass. And sometimes I go to Adoration where there is some sort of music leader leading adoration, praise, and worship.
But…as cool as it is do have Adoration done this way with song, with the Pope, with other people, etc… my favorite way to adore Christ is in silence, usually in an empty-but-open Catholic church. There’s a greater profoundness spending that time with Jesus truly present in the Eucharist when it is just Him and me in silence, free from the distractions of other noises and other people. And I mention this because I’m at a point in my journey of faith that I don’t require music to be playing in order to praise and worship our Lord. And though Adoration is a form of worship of Jesus for us Catholics…I think it’s important for us Catholics to know that Adoration is possible without all the bells and smells of a setting like this experience at World Youth Day or at retreats.
Anyway, don’t get me wrong… it is still very much a good thing that our worship leaders and favorite Christian music artists, and choir ministers lead us in praise and worship of Jesus in our churches. But I think to do that before our Lord, truly present, brings about a deeper and more profound sense of focus and really helps us call to mind a deeper sense of why we even sing to Jesus in first place.
Lord, I need You, oh, I need You. Every hour I need You. My one defense, my righteousness. Oh God, how I need You.
– JD
Praise band from Hearts On Fire Rally 2009 // xuthiensun, Flickr
Br. Timothy busted out his guitar in the Metro on our second day in Rio. Really, there were no worries about feelin’ judged by others for doing this because everyone else in the Metro were pilgrims!
While I didn’t get my camera out in time to actually film Pope Francis driving by…I at least got some of the reactions along with the tail end of his motorcade.
First, a story. This was our first day/night in Rio where we went up to Christ the Redeemer. Our group got split up again on the way down from Christ the Redeemer, so half of us were able to head down while the other group had to wait for a group that had rented out the trains as well as wait for the trains to come back and get them. Needless to say, the group that got left behind had to wait a while. However, that group got to do some singing and hanging out with bishops and people from California.
Meanwhile, I was with the group that was able to head down the mountain first. We decided to wait at the bottom station. That resulted in pictures with some people from Argentina. Then we decided to go hang out in front of the Catholic church, St. Jude’s, across the street from the station. While there, a group of Brazilians also waiting there noticed our USA and Texas flags and immediately requested group photos. After some group photo-ing, the Brazilians, in all their awesome enthusiasm, started singing and dancing. They invited our group to join with them. They even taught us the official flash mob dance for World Youth Day 2013!
After some dancin’ and hangin’ with our new Brazilian friends, we noticed that a fairly large group from some sort of Jesuit school was chillin’ across the street from the church. We exchanged a few unofficial WYD greetings (which was pretty much just yelling, “eyyyyyy!” between groups). After a while, the Brazilians decided to run over to the Jesuit school group and beckoned us to join in as well. We eventually made our way across the way. Much thanks to the police officer who stopped traffic so we could safely cross the street!
Well, the Brazilians, again in their awesome expression of enthusiasm, started teaching that Jesuit school group the flash mob dance. And from there, it just kind of erupted into a dance party partially on the sidewalk and partially on the street. We did the flash mob dance, some sort of dancing simulating popcorn, other misc. dances, the Cupid Shuffle, etc. This all attracted more groups who joined in and in the end, news people and more law enforcement came because it was that much of a commotion!
Br. Timothy disappeared for a bit, but we found him hangin’ and jammin’ with his bro, Br. Gabriel, who was with the Dallas group. They led some praise and worship at the small eating/shopping area at Christ the Redeemer.
Obviously, when you have a friar with a guitar…other people get interested. 😉 So that’s why a good chunk of the group from Boston joined in with us. And others too!
SEAS & St. Thomas Aquinas @ WYD Rio '13 
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