ukpilgrims

Dominic James Cunliffe

While many of us are preparing for WYD using our talents, Dominic Cunliffe was busy making his debut album. Dominic is a youth worker and catechist at Holy Ghost Balham, South London and is studying for a Bachelor of Divinity with Maryvale Institute. He is also a singer-songwriter and has released his debut single You Sustain, and album Childsong online.

Jo-Anne Rowney chatted to Dominic about his songwriting and how it links to WYD.

Dominic has released Childsong, his album, to fund a trip to World Youth Day. Donations for the album will go towards funding for Take a Stand, the group Dominic is travelling with. But to understand Dominic’s motivation he tells me he needs to explain his own journey of faith, which began years ago.

“I was raised as a cradle Catholic and always saw myself as intensely spiritual. I was quite actively in the church as a teenager,” he said.

As he got older though Dominic says he ‘lost the concept of faith’ and by the end of university had left God behind.
He said: “I left God behind and ended up in a very gloomy and negative place. The joy in Christ had evaporated. I was more hippy or I suppose pagan.”

It was after university that Dominic started to make his way back. “After university I guess was the crisis point. I came back to Cardiff and I felt like I was where I was meant to be.”

Spurred on by this feeling Dominic started to get involved. “It was there I got a lot more involved in a non-Catholic Church, it was Christian though. My first morning there I sang and it completely reminded me how much I missed God and needed Him. I didn’t go back to Church, but increased the musical side of things. People started to nuture my talents. They invested their time freely in me and I re-learnt how to worship with music.”

Dominic says while there was no conversion moment as such he knew he had come home at a Youth 2000 event when he was in front of the Blessed Sacrament. “It wasn’t a bombshell or penny dropping moment, I knew that the Blessed Sacrament was real, I knew I was Catholic and it’s as simple as that.”

While Dominic had found his faith he took awhile to share it. “For the next eight months I’d call myself a ‘closet catholic’ I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

Now though Dominic shares his faith through his music. He explains how his music has changed. “The music I used to write was folk, acoustic or hippy, I played it acoustic with my guitar. With Childsong I’ve created an album I believe God gave to me. It took me out of my comfort zone as I teamed up with a Gospel rapper and he’s made me sound a bit different. More pop and RnB twist to it.”

Dominic James

Quite a change, I say.

“If said five years ago I’d be doing this I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said. “I thought it should all be unplugged. But He’s done a great job. It’s given it an interesting edge.”

Dominic’s album wasn’t always for WYD.  “I had just written Your Child Forever and I just got the inspiration suddenly to do an album to help people who feel orphaned somehow. I never met my father and I knew God is father to us all. I wanted to write an album to help people understand that.”

The idea didn’t quite take off though. “As fun as it was I needed to be reminded its God’s project – I decided I’d take no profit from the sales. It was His inspiration. After awhile I decided to give the funding from it to Take a Stand, a group going to WYD. I’m going with them.”

Coming to the end of our conversation, Dominic tries to explain his excitement ahead of WYD. “I wasn’t anti-Catholic before I was more apathetic so I’m so excited to go to WYD – to finally go from imagining the Church alive to see the life as a visible body of people. I’ve been before but not since I’ve come back to the faith so I know it’s going to be amazing and unique.”

Listen to Dominic’s music at  http://dominicjames.bandcamp.com/album/childsong

By Michael Meadows

With less than two months to go until the Diocesan World Youth Day Pilgrimage departs for Rio de Janeiro, preparations for our young pilgrims are in full swing. In July the Liverpool contingent will join up to four million other young Catholics in the iconic Brazilian city, for a two week long festival of faith, in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer.

Demand for places on the trip has been high, with interest surging in Latin America in particular as a result of Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s recent election as Pope. This enthusiasm has been matched back on Merseyside, with our thirty young participants eagerly anticipating this once in a lifetime experience. As can be expected in the current economic climate, such a considerable journey is matched by an equally sizeable cost for each of the successful applicants from our area, so pilgrims have been using their initiative to each fund-raise their steps to South America.

On a glorious May bank holiday weekend, Rosie Whalley (18) and myself, Michael Meadows (23) enlisted the help of our kind-hearted friends Frankie, Lauren and Tom to host an all-day car wash at Our Lady Immaculate, Bryn. The event was extremely well supported by the Parish, and saw the team clean countless vehicles whilst their owners attended masses during the dayRosie, who attended World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011, said, ‘My Parish has always been extremely supportive in helping me get to occasions like World Youth Day, and this event was no exception. I must thank Father John and all of the parishioners for their help and kind donations. I’m really looking forward to getting to Rio, being able to explore my faith further and meet lots of new people.’

Other recent fundraising events across the Diocese have included cake sales, a Race Night, and also the Animate Youth Ministries team partaking in a mammoth 24 hour sponsored cycle, covering the distance from their base in St Helens, to the Vatican. The event was held at the local ‘Gymbug’ and saw members of the team and friends don their tracksuits for stints on the bike towards the 2112km target. An extremely tired Animate Team Coordinator Sarah Beatty explained after the event, ‘our Team Leader Ferg Williams-Tanton organised the cycle with the owners of Gymbug, as many of the team are members at the gym. We had lots of fun and burned countless calories in raising just over £700 in total!’

To keep the Archdiocese informed of preparations in the weeks building up to the pilgrimage, and indeed whilst out in Rio, the trip’s media team will be posting blog entries, a diary and articles on a regular basis. Anyone interested in following our journey should log on to www.liverpoolcatholic.org.uk. Follow @LivPilgrim and @AnimateYouth.

Jorge

As a young Catholic I have already been privileged to have had some life changing faith experiences and it is my prayer now that WYD will also prove to be a truly spiritual time.

My story of conversion to Catholicism began in 1997 in Angola when my Godmother first took me to a Catholic parish for a catechetical programme. My mum was not a Catholic and at the time I felt that I belonged to many churches but also paradoxically not to any of them!  Initially catechesis didn’t really mean anything to me and I wasn’t that keen on going to Holy Mass either, since it meant missing out on morning sleep and watching cartoons on TV!

As time went by however I began to warm to my catechist in how she presented the Catholic faith and that helped me stay for the catechetical programme. In 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee, I was baptised and immediately after that I joined the Eucharistic Youth Movement; this was the second best decision I took as a young Catholic, second to receiving the Sacraments of Initiation. This movement helped me to develop as a Catholic and a person as a whole. I grew from strength to strength and went on to become a leader in the movement and a catechist myself. As a member of the movement and catechist, I participated in a number of retreats, vigils, Bible studies and various other youth gatherings.

Although the phrase “I have done it all” doesn’t apply when it comes to God, I think WYD is the one missing in my list of Christian youth events. I first properly tried to go to WYD in 2008 in Sydney, but I was unable to raise funds on time. As for Madrid 2011, it came at the wrong time for me, I was graduating that summer from Newcastle University and had to prepare to return home immediately after. So 2013 is the year for me and it is amazing that the WYD is taking place in the biggest Catholic nation on earth! I’m really looking forward to sharing this great experience with my fellow Catholics from Westminster Diocese and all over the world and of course with our newly elected Pope!

Jorge, 27, is a comms officer for the Diocese of Westminser. 

Want to share your faith story ahead of WYD? leave a comment and we’ll get in touch!

Christ the Redeemer

WE are all familiar with images of Christ the Redeemer. The statue of Jesus overlooking the city is one of the most striking images associated with Rio.

So it’s no surprise that as part of WYD Rio 2013  pilgrims are being invited to visit some of the best known landmarks, including the statue and the Sugar Loaf, in the Marvelous City!

To fit in with the main events, catechesis and factoring in the time it takes to get around the city, the department for cultural events has advised pilgrims to buy their tickets for specific dates and times in advance to make sure they don’t miss a thing (to quote Aerosmith).

To help pilgrims out the department has advised they do not buy tickets for:

Tuesday 23 July: 15h – 22h

Wednesday 24 July: 6h – 14h

Thursday 25 July: 6h – 22h

Friday 26 July: 6h – 22h

Saturday 27 July: 14h – 0h

Sunday 28 July: It is not recommended at any time

Tickets are available on the internet only 

Tickets for Christ the Redeemer and the Sugar Loaf are available online now, and tickets are on offer from July 17 to August 1 – during WYD.

Christ the Redeemer will be available 24 hours a day, between 17 July to 1 August.

More info is on the rio2013 website, but here’s a list of tour operators that can help!

1. Corcovado Train:

http://www.corcovado.com.br/

Phone: +55 (21) 2558-1329

Address: Rua Cosme Velho, 513 – Cosme Velho

2. Paineiras-Corcovado:

http://www.paineirascorcovado.com.br/

E-mail: jmjc@paineirascorcovado.com.br

Address: Estrada das Paineiras, s/nº – Santa Teresa

3. Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açúcar:

http://www.bondinho.com.br/

Phone: +55 (21) 2546-8400 or +55 (21) 2542-1641

Address: Avenida Pasteur, 520 – Urca

Salford Diocese in Avila, the group I went to WYD Madrid with.

By Alex Smith, pilgrim

After going to World Youth Day, Madrid and finding out that the next WYD would be held in Rio de Janeiro I was absolutely certain that I wanted to go to the next one. I remember getting on the coach outside my hotel in Madrid and being told by my group leaders that they would be starting to plan the trip to Rio the following week. Everyone on the coach cheered in elation and we agreed that we would all go to the next one after becoming such good friends.

Just under a year later I found myself doing volunteer work at a Catholic retreat centre in the Lake District, something I probably wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t have attended WYD Madrid. We had a group of students from a secondary school in my hometown of Manchester and I was surprised to find out that one of the students was the brother of a boy I went to Madrid with. He told me that our diocese wouldn’t be attending WYD Rio due to the high price of travel and insurance and I felt an aura of disappointment that it was likely I wouldn’t go and might never ever get to go to Rio de Janeiro for that matter.

A group of people I was living with whilst I was volunteering at Brettargh Holt Catholic Retreat Centre in the Lake District.

However I felt that I couldn’t let the lack of attendance from my diocese put a stop to me going to WYD Rio 2013 and I took probably one of the bravest steps I had ever taken in my life and decided I was going to apply to be a volunteer and go alone to Rio. Not only would it be my first time alone on a plane, my first time outside of the country on my own, but as well my first time ever outside of Europe.

After I applied to be a volunteer, I put the thought of it to the back of my mind because it was still a long way off; I would be starting my second year of university that September and as well as that I would be moving out of my mum’s house. October came and I hadn’t heard anything from Rio and I presumed that they hadn’t selected me to be a volunteer. Then a couple of weeks later whilst I was at home with my mum, completely out of the blue I got an email from a man called Antonio Mateo, I opened the email on my phone and quickly scanned the text. When I got to the email I was confused and couldn’t believe what I had read, I went back to the top and read it all over again. I remember I exclaimed “What?!” and my mum who was stood a few feet away stopped what she was doing and asked “What’s the matter Alex?” I read the email a few more times and then told my mum the amazing news that I’d been selected to be a volunteer for WYD Rio 2013.

I was straight onto Facebook and proclaimed it to all of my friends that I was going to be volunteering in Rio and like after like came. I joined the volunteer group on Facebook that I had been given the link to in my acceptance email and went onto the English WYD Facebook and thanked them for selecting me, little did I know that in a matter of weeks I would be responsible along with a group of other people for running the official Facebook page for WYD as well as their official Twitter account.

This all came about from my constant posts on the volunteer’s Facebook page until one day I received a friend request from a lady named Anastasia. She sent me a message telling me that she had seen my posts on Facebook and thought my English was very good, I thanked her and thanked her. She then said that the Rio office were looking for people with good language skills to help translate and post all the news coming from Rio around the internet and asked me whether I would be interested in joining the team. This was the beginning of an almost new life for me. From then on I have said ‘Yes’ to every opportunity given to me whether this be doing extra work for WYD, playing for different rugby teams or going on countless adventures.

Since then I have continued to post for WYD on Facebook and Twitter, along with that I’ve been asked to work as part of the WYD English media team in Rio during WYD which means I’m part of a small group of people responsible for broadcasting news throughout WYD week which makes me feel so important. On top of this I have been asked to do a very similar job in Rio by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference for England and Wales as well as helping run the UKPilgrims Facebook and Twitter. To add another job to my already large list just two days after I arrive back in the UK from Rio I am being whisked away with my diocese to continue doing a similar role during a pilgrimage my diocese is running called WYDFest. At the end of all this work I have no idea how I am going to be able to just stop, I’ve had a growing list of jobs that in the next few months are going to completely take over my life for my summer. I CAN’T WAIT!

I hope that I don’t sound in any way narcissistic but I have no idea how I have managed to juggle all this work I have been doing for WYD so far with my university studies, working two jobs and then having a social life on top of it. If anybody were to ask me now ‘What’s so good about WYD?’ I would tell them by going to WYD you have an absolutely fantastic time, but the true wonder of WYD is the way it dramatically affects your life afterwards.

David Howell

I am 26 yrs old and in my fourth year of training for the priesthood in Rome for Southwark Archdiocese.

I want to go to Rio: to be with the Holy Father and young Catholics from all over the world and learn about the faith in other cultures; to be inspired by young people thinking of the priesthood and religious life and hopefully help others consider it; to grow in my own faith.

I have been to WYD once before, to Madrid, and I am coming with the Take a Stand group  as they are based in my parish more or less.

Are you off to WYD? Send us your pilgrim profile to appear on the blog, or let us know what you are doing to prepare.