Rowing to Cologne” “

A little over three months to go before the start of World Youth Day in Cologne, and preparatory events are being stepped up in Holland too. And in this case too, creativity linked in a singular way with the local traditions is being displayed: the projects include pilgrimages by boat, floral mosaics, and ecumenical celebrations. PILGRIMS BY BOAT. The projects devised by the Dutch dioceses for World Youth Day also include a pilgrimage by boat. The event is reported by the website www.wjd.nl which opens with a series of interviews describing the various activities dedicated to the preparations underway in the country. The first interview is with Arnold Berkel, born in 1983, a university student of building management, who is responsible for the logistics of a journey by boat called “Route to Cologne”, sponsored by the dioceses of Rotterdam and Haarlem. Arnold, who was at the last WYD in Toronto, considers himself a veteran who has been able to “experience the sense of belonging to a community, both due to the rich participation of many of his own compatriots and to the fact that he was able to share a sense of celebration and joy in his own faith thanks to his meeting with other young people from all over the world”. “The mass with the Pope – maintains Arnold Berkel – is the crucial moment of WYD because everyone is then able to understand that the same Church exists throughout the world”. As regards his role in organizing the boat trip to Cologne, Arnold says he is “under pressure as national organizer of the preparations for the journey by boat, which will begin from the port of Rotterdam and stop off en route in various cities to spend the night. Along the route the journey will continue also by bus from Nijmegen to Xanten to follow in the footsteps of Titus Brandsma and Karl Leisner, who both died during the Second World War and were beatified by John Paul II. Already some 600 youths have booked a place on this very unusual pilgrimage by boat, though one perfectly in tune with the character of this maritime nation that was born and developed in close contact with the water. Other Dutch projects for WYD include one of an ecumenical nature: A column of motor coaches bound for Cologne will depart from the Protestant community of Almere to testify to the participation of the other churches in the great youth jamboree. FLORAL Mosaic WITH THE wyd logo. The WYD logo reproduced in flowers won third prize in the competition for flower mosaics held at the end of April at De Zilk, in the Netherlands. It was a complex flower arrangement that required two weeks of work including the design phase, which was followed by four days’ intensive work by a team of ten youths, who closed 34,000 holes with one or more leaves of hyacinth. The part of the flower used in the composition is the lower part of the petal, enamelled, that is found close to the stem of the hyacinth. The annual flower mosaic competition took place in tandem with the floral competition at Bollenstreek. This is not the first time that the WYD logo has been reproduced in flowers. At Easter a similar flower composition logo was given a prominent place in the eucharistic celebrations and during the Easter blessing “Urbi et orbi” in St. Peter’s Square. In that case the initiative was that of the Dutch organization for WYD in collaboration with the Dutch Bloemen Bureau (national office for floral promotion) and other organizations that promote the floral sector and send flowers to the Pope at Easter each year. NEOCATECHUMENAL YOUTH. Some 35,000 youth from various countries, including Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Finland and Holland, took part in a neocatechumenal rally held in the Arena of Amsterdam at the end of April. Many Dutch bishops participated in the meeting. Bishop Punt of Haarlem and Bishop Wiertz of Roermond both run a course of neocatechumenal type for the formation of priests in their dioceses, open also to foreign priests. Cardinal Simonis sent a letter to the young participants in which he writes that “your meeting is taking place at the end of the pontificate, rich in wonders, of John Paul II, who placed so much hope in the young… this Pope has truly made the Father visible to this generation… May the Holy Spirit open the hearts of many young people, so that they may accept the call to a spiritual marriage, in the priesthood or in religious life, and contribute to the new evangelization of Europe!”.