Luke Yamnitz, a freshman at De Smet Jesuit High School and a member of Mary, Mother of the Church Parish in Mattese, wrote the following about his experiences on the papal pilgrimage, leading up to the youth rally at Saint Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Phew! Twenty hours on a bus! They had told us 18 last night when we departed from St. Louis! But wow! Twenty hours on a bus full of 50 people I don't know!
Hey—My name is Luke Yamnitz. I am a freshman at De Smet Jesuit High School in St. Louis. Thursday night, April 17, I left with the Office of Youth Ministry on the pilgrimage to see our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in New York City at the Papal Youth Rally '08.
When I had gotten the invitation to join the archdiocese on this short trip a few months ago, I was excited to join in. I love being active with the youth of the archdiocese, so getting to be with them was going to be exciting...but then it hit me a few days before departure that I AM GOING TO SEE THE POPE!!!!!—Our HOLY FATHER!—the Vicar of CHRIST on earth!!! The entire week I had been waiting and waiting for the end-of-school bell to ring Thursday afternoon so I could begin my great journey to see the man who represents us around the world.
I threw my bags onto the bus and stood around the small group of about six other "pilgrims" who I knew from my youth group and who were venturing with me. I looked around and saw many faces. I did end up running across a few familiar faces who I was so excited to see for they are, of course, amazing people! But once again, I didn't know 50 of these people on this bus. They told us 18 hours from leaving the Cardinal Rigali Center until arriving at Holy Trinity Church in New Jersey to have Mass with our wonderful Archbishop Burke.
After Mass in the Cardinal Rigali Center chapel and a slice of pizza downstairs, our Youth Apostolate group of around 55 boarded the bus and we set off. My hilarious friend David set an 18-hour countdown on his phone, and every two minutes he was shouting out to the entire bus how much longer we had to go. For the first hour I was sitting in the back of the bus with the few people I knew. I was continually looking ahead of me at all the faces that I was yearning to know. Then it hit me: I was on this trip with a new family to see the leader of the biggest family of all! I didn't want to limit myself to those I already knew. As the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven says, "Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know." I didn't know these people...but I set my heart onto making sure I would.
I made my way up the bus and sat down in an empty seat. Ten seconds later I jumped out of that seat. I hadn't even said anything, and I had already managed to embarrass myself: I had sat in the seat that another person had just recently "gotten sick" on. Even though the seat had been wiped off, I was highly embarrassed. However, I put my smile back on and introduced myself. The people around me were extremely nice (like I knew they would be), and we mostly talked about where we were from. Then there was a group of four that I started talking to...and continued to talk to for the next five hours! I was getting to know my family.
We made just a couple of bus stops for bathroom breaks, and then everyone started to get a little heavy-eyed. Liz Buncher (our fabulous pilgrimage leader) popped in the movie Elf.My group of four let me join them on their seat. Right after the movie was over, and my bottom was numb, I laid down on the nice, hard, flat bus floor and fell asleep.
Morning came and my back half hurt, half felt great! We were in eastern Ohio, and the mountains and scenery outside were beautiful! I made my way to the back of the bus once again since my new friends were still snoozing. The sun was shining, and I was once again getting excited!
Well, the day proved to be the hardest part of the trip. Even though you could see outside, everyone was tired in different degrees. Well, I was pretty awake because I'm a morning, day, and night person, but most everyone else was sitting around quietly. We stopped for breakfast and set off on our way again soon. Also, during breakfast, we all discovered that there had apparently been an earthquake back home in St. Louis overnight. Great. The one day that we leave St. Louis...something exciting happens! We sure didn't feel anything on the already bumpy bus ride!
11:00 a.m.—we are supposed to arrive at 2:00. Alright. Only three hours! That's not bad!
Well...
Those "three" hours were the hardest. My group of four had to become a group of three because one girl had a headache from the bus ride. But with the three of them that were still awake, we wrote to one another on a notebook and passed it around...It was the closest thing to Internet chatting we had!! Ha ha!
One of them dared me to start the song "God Bless America" (which went well), and another dared me to go and ask every person on the bus who their math teacher was and what the teacher's approximate age is, as close as they could guess. That allowed me to get to know everyone on the bus a little more...and they got to know that I was an energetic guy!!
Well, all of that died down, and it was 2:00—but no New Jersey??!! My one friend from my new "family" who wasn't feeling well was sleeping, and I felt pretty bad. She was my family, my "sister," and a great new friend. I grabbed my notebook and wrote "Feel Better" in big letters. Then I walked around to everyone on the bus and asked if they would like to sign the "card" in support for her. Everyone who was awake signed it. Doing this was just to let her know we were there for her. Many of the people hadn't met her yet, but they knew we were all in this together. We all wanted to be there for one another, even if it meant simply signing a lame card!
4:00—Mass starts. It was supposed to start at Holy Trinity at 2:30...whoops! Bus ran late.
As I sat at Mass, I was very tired. New Jersey traffic could be heard right outside the windows of the small church. But during Communion, something amazing hit me in an extreme way.
Archbishop Burke had mentioned that we were coming together from St. Louis, and Pope Benedict was all the way over here from Rome! I had thought of it before, but it truly hit me what I was doing.
I was meeting with a great man to welcome him into our family.
I was there representing Luke Yamnitz, representing my youth group, De Smet, the REAP Team, the Office of Youth Ministry, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and the entire great nation of the United States of America. I was welcoming the leader of our huge family into the American Family!
I realized why I had spent 20 hours on that bus. It wasn't to see New York City. It wasn't to get out of school on Friday. It wasn't for free food. It was to welcome and celebrate with the Vicar of Christ! I am here in New York City to represent YOU. We are all a huge family, and I get to meet the Daddy!
Now I am totally psyched.
To be continued...
