After experiencing Denver '93 as a teenager, local mother excited for her son's own World Youth Day pilgrimage in Panama

LINCOLN PARK — Jodie Figurski still remembers the long climb up the mountains.

It was World Youth Day 1993, and she and her fellow World Youth Day travelers from St. Anthony Parish in Belleville were making the trek up the mountain to reach Mile High Stadium in Denver for Mass with Pope St. John Paul II.

“I just remember being amazed how many of us where there, being in awe going up that mountain with people from all over the world to celebrate Mass with the pope,” said Figurski, at the time a senior in high school. Along with her peers, she remembers boarding the bus to drive through the night to Colorado.

“That experience was really formative for my faith,” Figurski said. “My mom was like, ‘Just go there,’ and I was thinking, ‘OK, this is something to do because I thought it would be cool.’ But it really had an impact on me.”

Figurski hopes what she experienced from World Youth Day Denver in 1993 will mirror what her son, Noah, a junior at Allen Park High School, will experience when he travels to World Youth Day 2019 in Panama City.

The parishioners of Christ the Good Shepherd in Allen Park will be traveling with a group of 17 people to Panama next week, trying to get as close as they can to Pope Francis and experience a prayerful, memorable event together.

“I just wanted to try and experience World Youth Day once in my lifetime,” Noah said. “I’m going to try to get as close to the pope as I can and ask for a blessing in the Lord’s name.”

Noah said he has never traveled outside the country before, but looks forward to meeting youths from around the world and participating in traditional World Youth Day customs.

“I’m going to be bringing some items to trade with kids from around the world; I have 48 mini buttons of the United Sates that I want to trade with people,” Noah said. “Our group also talked about taking a ride on the Panama Canal if we can.”

Jodie will be tagging along as one of the chaperones of the group. The seventh-grade catechism teacher at Christ the Good Shepherd is looking forward not only to seeing how World Youth Day has grown since she went to Denver, but also to see her son experience the global gathering.  

“I’m looking forward to him experiencing the camaraderie; it is a kind of experience that’s hard to imagine,” Jodie Figurski said. “I hope that he will have the experience I had. It helped my faith so much. I just remember all the music — not all of it was serious — all the fun and the great experience that really helped me grow in my faith.”

For Noah, visiting Panama and trying its food — he admits he is a fan of spicy food — is all part of the experience in seeing how the Catholic Church is truly universal, calling people from all cultures and languages together in the Body of Christ.

“I don’t know that much about Panama, but I am excited to go to a place I don’t know too much about, just to experience things you don’t usually see that often in your own country,” Noah said. “I look forward to learning how people from other countries worship God.”

Seeing so many devoted Catholics in one place is something that still resonates for Jodie Figurski. While traveling up the Rocky Mountains in Denver, she remembers seeing and meeting people from countless different countries and cultures, all descending on one place to give witness to Christ.

“It’s a hope that you feel, the fact that we are able to come together as Catholics from every country and be proud of who we are, together,” Jodie said. “When the Catholic youth come together, it is awesome to see how excited everyone is. So much of this society of, ‘Oh, be quiet, don’t step on anybody else,’ can go away at World Youth Day.”

In turn, Jodie hopes Noah and the rest of the Christ the Good Shepherd contingent can show the world the faith that resides in Lincoln Park, Michigan.

Seeing so many other Christians worshipping God in the same place and time “shows that I am not the only one in the world,” Noah said. “The world can learn from Michigan how we do things, and we can learn from them.”

For Jodie, experiencing World Youth Day in Panama will be like experiencing it twice: once as a pilgrim, and once as a mom.

“It is very emotional (going to World Youth Day a second time), because a mom’s heart does grow,” Jodie said. “It makes you very proud and you think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe my kid did that.’ But the more I think about it, that is probably what my parents thought when I graduated school. Seeing him, and my daughter, Elizabeth, who will probably be going to the next Word Youth Day, brings me closer to my parents, when they saw me going through the same things.”