Utahns experience World Youth Day: Mary, Kayelyn and Meagan Tolbert

Courtesy photo/Mary Tolbert

+ Enlarge

TAYLORSVILLE — Mary Tolbert, director of religious education at Saint Martin de Porres Parish in Taylorsville, originally agreed to attend World Youth Day as a chaperone for a group from her congregation. When that plan fell through, she decided to attend anyway with her daughters, Kayelyn and Meagan, who both teach religious education classes at the parish.

For Mary and Meagan, the trip to Madrid was their first time out of the country. For Kayelyn, it was her second trip abroad; she studied in London last year.

All three said the crowds were what impressed them the most. More than 1.5 million young Catholics attended World Youth Day, which was Aug. 16-21 in Madrid, Spain.

"There were big groups walking through the streets singing ‘Alleluia,’" Mary said. "They weren’t shy, they weren’t afraid, they weren’t embarrassed."

"We go to a small church, and seeing all those people and what they were really there for" was impressive, Meagan said, adding that the experience made her realize that there are more Catholics than just those who attend her church, that they care about the faith and want to learn more about it. "It was nice to see how many people wanted to see the pope and learn lots of things," she said.

The Tolberts were so far away during Pope Benedict XVI’s appearance at Cuatro Vientos airbase that they could barely see him, but "you could feel that it was a spiritual experience," Kayelyn said. For her, the walk to Cuatro Vientos also was a wonderful experience, as they joined groups of people singing songs in various languages. Even though the Tolberts didn’t know the words, they soon learned them and joined in the singing, she said.

At first Mary worried that being in such a historic city would distract her from the spiritual aspect of the trip because she wanted to sightsee, "but you know what? It was the perfect place. Every other building you walked into was a cathedral or a church and people were in there praying. Even if you thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m getting sidetracked here,’ you walked in somewhere and you were brought right back."

For Kayelyn, the biggest thrill at World Youth Day was to realize that she was one of millions of Catholics, she said. "You felt like with all these millions of strangers, you were all there for the same thing so you were all friends, joining this experience, celebrating your faith. It was a celebration the whole time. People were singing, people were dancing and they were just sharing their culture the whole time. It made me feel more excited about being Catholic."

That excitement was catching, Mary said, because as they joined groups in singing "all of a sudden you didn’t notice that you were hot and sweating and burning and dehydrated. You were just more in awe. To me, World Youth Day was millions of people in that one place at the same time sharing the same thing. I wanted to bottle it up and bring it home."