St. Mark Catholic Church in Catonsville will host a prayer service on Friday, August 12, at 1 pm for a group of parishioners traveling to Cologne, Germany for the 2005 World Youth Day celebration, August 16-21. Open to family and friends, the prayer service will provide an opportunity for the group of young travelers to come together to pray prior to their journey. The 12 parishioners form St. Mark will join Cardinal Keeler and 122 other young people and youth ministers to form the delegation from the Archdiocese of Baltimore at World Youth Day. Following the prayer service the delegates will travel as a group to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., where they will depart for Germany.
While in Germany they will experience 12 days of prayer and self-reflection (led by Pope Benedict XVI), historical sightseeing, and the native Bavarian culture.
First started in 1985, World Youth Day is “a festival of encounter and solidarity”. Youth between the ages of 16 and 30 gather together from all over the world to strengthen faith and establish identity amongst the Church through prayer, worship, and discussion. The event has been recognized as instrumental to the future of the faith as the next generation of church leaders gathers to share ideas and wrestle with church issues. World Youth Day 05’ will be the first youth celebration for the newly elected Holy Father and will be an important opportunity for youth to identify with the Church’s new figurehead.
To read about the group’s experiences and to see photographs from Germany, visit the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s World Youth Day ’05 section on its web site, www.archbalt.org/wyd2005/.