Sogang University undergraduate Sol Jee Ahn was at MAGIS and World Youth Day 2013 with a group of 27 pilgrims from Korea. She shares with us how MAGIS helped her feel closer to God and loved as a child of God.
When I first applied for the MAGIS programme, the only thing I wanted was to get to know God better. I had been baptized as a baby, and I had had a hard time understanding what God wants of me. During the preparatory meetings we had before leaving for Brazil, I tried to get closer to Ignatian Spirituality, and discern God’s will. However, it was not until my first night in Salvador that I truly felt God’s love.
Exhausted from the 30-hour flight, I went to the Colegio Antonio Vieira gymnasium with the other Korean pilgrims for the opening ceremony of MAGIS. With my heart pounding to the beat of the music, I saw a giant flag made out of many national flags. There were youth from so many countries and everyone was cheering for being a part of MAGIS 2013. At that moment, I realized that believing in God was more than a personal thing; it was a universal thing. We came from different cultures but all of us formed one big “nation” just as the flag symbolized. I felt a tremendous sense of belonging to the “nation” that made me proud of being God’s child and want to be more attentive to what God wants of me.
After four days in Salvador, I left for Nova Friburgo, a city in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, for an ecological experience. Our experience team consisted of five different nationalities: Korea, Lebanon, France, Brazil, and Columbia.
The main theme of our ecological experience was to feel God’s love in beauty of nature and to ponder upon the relationship between humans and nature. We got up early and started each day with Morning Prayer, reading assigned gospel passages and thinking about the meaning. Each day we were asked to keeping a phrase in our minds as we participated in various activities. One phrase that particularly struck me was that for July 12 – “Lord, grant me the grace to recognize myself as a “nation” and be able to find myself in other nations.”
On July 16, we reflected on the phrase “Lord, may I recognize and experience the effects of Your presence in me and in all creatures.” That day, we had to walk quite a distance to get to an eco-friendly village. There, surrounded by bamboos, other plants and animals, I felt grateful for what God had created. We learned how to build a house with mud and eco-friendly bags. We also learned to prepare a delicious vegetarian meal using only natural ingredients.
Before experiencing this eco-friendly life, I had assumed that it would be very uncomfortable and even irritating not to be able to use things that humans had created for ourselves such as processed food and concrete. However, I found that living only with what God has given to us was very relaxing, and even nice.
Nova Friburgo is a city that preserves the beauty of nature. For a couple of days, we went hiking, and surrounded by fabulous scenery, we would stop to meditate and appreciate what God created for us. In Korea, reckless destruction of nature has caused many problems so the experience at Nova Friburgo made me consider the ideal relationship between nature and humans.
But even Nova Friburgo has suffered ecologically at the hands of humans. A major landslide in 2011 killed many people and destroyed many buildings. A local volunteer told us that eucalyptus trees, which are not native to Nova Friburgo, had been planted on the mountains because they were easy to grow. But the roots of eucalyptus trees are too weak to hold the soil well, so when it rained a lot that year, the mountains having lots of eucalyptus trees were destroyed. Hearing about the tragic event made me think about the difficulty of restoring nature to its former condition once it has been laid waste.
I will never forget the three weeks I spent in Brazil for MAGIS and WYD, especially interacting with youth from so many other countries throughout the MAGIS programme. At first, it was hard for me to understand others because of the language barrier. However, after being a part of MAGIS “nation,” people from all over the world became friends.
MAGIS helped me understand God’s will and love for me. I originally thought that God’s will can only be learned by reading the bible, but I realized that meeting people following God and finding God in them are also important ways to get to know God better. Moreover, by experiencing ecological activities, I discovered I could find God everywhere.
MAGIS is the most important meeting of Ignatian youth in the world, and is sponsored by the Society of Jesus, in conjunction with World Youth Day. About 2,000 young people from Jesuit schools and parishes in 50 countries travelled to Brazil for MAGIS 2013, which was held from July 12 to 22 in Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and about 40 other Brazilian cities. For more information on MAGIS 2013, visit www.magis2013.com.
Related article: Preparing for MAGIS.
