Today...

...a useful meeting with a team who are involved with one of the projects at World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011.

WYD is such a vast event - I don't know if the Spaniards do any panicking, I think their general approach to life is not to fret and freak out but to assume that things will work well in the end... There will be tough times ahead: in Australia there was a barrage of anti-Papal hype in the media, and all sorts of practical and political worries - but then everything worked out gloriously.

There are all sorts of plans for young people from Britain to attend. They deserve our full encouragement and support. Back in 2005 I managed a sponsored cycle ride from London to Brighton to raise funds. Not sure what I can manage in 2011. But after hearing about the Madrid event I began to think about ideas and possibilities...

Read some of the H. Father's thoughts about World Youth Day here.