A gift from God in Denver, Colorado
Submitted by 5150 on November 02 2000 23:17:30
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When I was around 18 years old, I was sent to see the Pope in Colorado for World Youth Day. It was one of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life, and at first I was going to just "get to Colorado," but in fact, after I got there, and saw all the amazing people, it was truly an event in which I knew I would remember for the rest of my life. I would take up so much bandwith if I told you of all the amazing little things that happened, spiritually and otherwise, but there is one event I would like to share with you, which left myself and a young boy and older sister bewildered, that truly made our lives what they are today. On the later part of the roadtrip, which was a 15 mile walk form downtown Denver to Cherry Creek State Park, most pilgrams, all youth, as young as 65, and as old as 66 (youth comes in all forms), walked with their youth groups or parishes, on a trek that would take us through the backyards and lives of the people of Denver, the trek was pre-layed, and water spots and urinals had been erected, and people would have spreads on their lawns, and you'd get to meet all the local people, and sit with them, and it truly was an amazing experience. I had grown fond of two youth with me, Kate and Evan, Evan was 15, and Kate, who I adored, was 18. She was absolutely amazing, I mean truly and honestly, a living saint. She had the most lovely singing voive, and it was as if Angels, were screaming their beautiful words from her lips, her soft blonde hair would shimmer in the Denver sun, as her brow and cheeks reflected a smile, that would win any contest, handsdown. Her brother Evan, was not as attractive, but was pyhsically hot, brown hair, 134 pds, 5' 4, solid, and he and I had some fun wrestling matches together, and another unusual experience (but this is neither the time nor place to discuss that :-)). As the week progressed, we had grown the closest to one another, and even though the dolt priests told us to not form cliques, that we were all as one; human nature took over, as with any event or group, and we formed our own pack, that seemed tighter than the whole congregation that was with us, all 144 of them from our group. There were about 8 of us, that got close, and did mostly everything together, but it was us three that bonded, and brought us to the trek which we were now on. At roughly 2:20 pm, almost 7 and half hours after our departure from downtown Denver, and I swear to you, I can se each step and word from each person in my mind as if the event happened yesterday, Aaron stopped and said, "51, oh my God look at the sun." I immediately stopped with Kate, whom I was very fondly holding hands with, and looked directly into the sun. At the time it really didn't phase me, as people walked by, and kind of gave us odd looks. But, I mean, the whole premise of looking in the sun, without squinting or carrying on aboout the watering of the eyes, didn't happen. There was not the immediate hand to cover the eyes, nor a head turning of sorts, to render the bright beams. As we looked, Kate told us to look at the circle that was around the sun. I stopped in dead tracks and was overcome with joy, I didn't know what to say. I thought, yeah so what a circle around the sun, no! Not this week, this day, with the Pope speaking. I swear to you, the sun was not like that anywhere else in the world. We all stopped immediately all of us, deadstong, others in our group, stopped as well, and saw us pointing and staring and asked what was wrong, Kate said, "Don't you see the circle around the sun?" They all looked up and looked away fast, as the heat of the July Sun, was too much for their eyes, and they said we see nothing at all and shook their heads. Evan, got very defensive, "What do you mean you can't see anything, it's right in front of you." They looked agin, and told us we would burn our eyes out. I said, "Impossible it is right there, you don't see the circle around the sun," and at least 6 or 7 people were gathered near us now, and no one knew what we wre talking about, they merely asked us if we were alright and offered us to sit and get some agua, said we were seeing things (these were people that told us to believe in anything, even if you couldn't see it, hypocrites...) We didn't know what to do, and sat on a bench near a rotunda to the mall. No one else was looking up, we all began to laugh in hysterics...then as if God himself, raised my head, I looked up once again, and saw the circle turn into beads, and Kate instintively looked up, and saw the making of the rosary, and there before our eyes, on the day of the 15 hr. pilgrimmage, the day the pope was going to speak to hundreds of thousands of youth from all over the world that night, the rosary lie, in all its glory; surrounding the bright, wicked sun. It was all there. Kate was sure to count each bead, and the beads that lead to the cross, and it was etched perfectly, as if we could grab it from the sky and use it just as the ones we had in our pockets. We grabbed each other and just stared, no one around us even asking us what was wrong or if we needed help, no one else looking at the sky and seeing what we were seeing. We utilized the bathroom in the mall, and got yelled at by some ignorant, myopic priest, for me bringing kids younger than me on our own...we never talked about it the rest of the week, and no one mentioned it in letters and follow up meetings we had. We walked the rest of the way there, and by 6 pm that night, had settled down for a camp out in Cherry Creek Park, with hundreds of thousands of others, just like us, yet not like us at all. We didn't hang together all night, and pray to the Holy Father, indeed we told ghost stories and made our ways to the 56 people deep lines to get food. Our bodies were alive though, and although it wasn't ever mentioned again, we all knew what had happened. I swear to you now, November 2, 2000, that what we saw was indeed real, not a figment of our imagination, not some cosmic annomolly, not some heat exhaustion or lack of hydro problem with our body chemistry; we were not hallucinating, nor were we drunk, we know what we saw, and that, if I had any doubt in what was taught to me growing up in Catholic school, fully and totally rectifed my belief in a higer power, Jesus and God or whatever. Considering it was the rosary in which we saw, the earlier takes prescedence. I am not text book Roman Catholic, I don't believe getting fancied up and going to church for an hour or so, makes you a good practicing Catholic. I do more good deeds in my life, and help out more people, and pray to God in my own church, my sanctuary if you will, than most of those, law abiding, do-gooders, dress to impress, I'll think I'll go to church at Easter and Christmas goofs, will ever manage. I know my God, and I don't have to go to mass to be the kind of Catholic that I am. But so help me God, if anyone has any doubts about their faith or their relegion or God in general, I tell you now, with my own eyes, that you gots to believe in something. So to Kate and Evan, we lost touch three months after our return, from the holy land if you will, we never wrote and life took over, and we each went our sepertae ways. I found your number in the phone book in your state one day last year Kate, wanted to call to see if you rememberd me after all these years, and to see if you were married, cause I would have mad you my wife, headstrong for eternity, because I loved so much, even if we only met for 11 days, and Evan, with your charming personality and nice hot strong soccer legs, I would have loved to have kept our friendship burning bright, in more ways than one. May God be with you, and love you and protect you, with whatever road you take now, today and everday of your lifes. I know you will never forget what we saw and what we accomplished. Love Christian |
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