On Sunday 20th July 2008 we held Festos, a festival day within an extended Lumos weekend to celebrate World Youth Day.
The day dawned rather cool and, although everyone tried hard to ignore it, even a little damp! From early morning Thornton College was a hive of activity as the Festos team, in their distinctive and much prized black t-shirts, assisted by the older Lumos participants were busy setting up. By 9.30am people were streaming onto the site, to be warmly welcomed by the young people from the Lumos weekend, swelling our numbers to over 250 young people and adults, and even the sun was beginning to make its appearance. Proceedings opened with a lively and inspiring time of music and worship led by CJM as we sang and prayed our way around the world. We saw and heard from our World Youth Day pilgrims in Sydney and then John Bell from the Iona Community, our main speaker, shared his stories and experiences of the global Church, and even taught us some songs from around the globe before everyone headed off to the workshops. There was such a rich variety of workshops it was difficult to choose. All day long there were other things to do too. There was an energetic and hard fought 5-a-side tournament, and an Art Project which brought out everyones creative side, a gospel choir led by Jo Boyce of CJM, and an instrumental workshop both of which contributed to the Mass at the end of the day. CAFOD ran a popular Action Station, whilst writing our Jesus stories, reflecting in the prayer tent, or following the prayer walk out in the grounds offered opportunities for a little peace.
At the end of the day everyone gathered in the hall for the World Youth Day Mass celebrated by Bishop Peter, assisted by Mgr Sean Healy, Fr Innocent Abonyi and Deacon Philip Pugh, which effectively combined a lively and participative liturgy with prayer and reflection, before being sent out to Go Into the World through an entertaining and thought provoking drama presented by Tooza Crowd.
