“We must thank Providence: this Cross, presented by the Pope, has united young Catholics throughout the world and today has reinforced the links between the youth of our diocese”. With these words the bishop of Siauliai (in northern Lithuania), Msgr. Eugenijus Bartulis, addressed the youth who had brought the Cross of World Youth Day and the icon of the Blessed Mother of God to the Hill of the Crosses, a symbolic place for the Lithuanian people. The WYD Cross will be venerated in the Baltic Republic from 6 to 19 September; particularly significant is the gesture of taking it on pilgrimage to the Hill of the Crosses, a religious site where thousands of crosses and religious symbols have been deposited over the centuries. Indeed it has been described as a “forest”. It was visited by John Paul II in 1993, and the crucifix donated by the Pope was raised at the foot of the hill. “My journey in the faith began with a pilgrimage along the roads of Lithuania, and by contemplating the Cross and the icon I can re-experience the birth of my faith. But this Cross is very special: each young person who approaches it leaves a little part of himself”, observed Mindaugas Lesutis, 32 years old, who took part in the pilgrimage and carried the WYD Cross for 12 km in recent days. This experience was not without a moment of panic when “the path became very narrow and we had to raise the Cross very high to enable it to pass among all the others. I feared it could fall to the ground, and in that moment it became even more precious to me”. On 19 September the Cross and the Icon of the Blessed Mother of God will be handed over to the young Catholics of Denmark.
