WYD AUDIO: Bishop Sheridan's July 17 Catechesis

Bishop Sheridan takes a question from a pilgrim from the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y. (Herald photo by Bill Howard)

During World Youth Day, there are morning catechetical sessions by bishops that pilgrims are strongly encouraged to attend. Bishop Sheridan was asked to give three sessions: one about an hour outside of Sydney yesterday; one this morning; and another tomorrow morning (which the Colorado Springs contingent will attend).

Today's session was awesome. There were concerns about sparse attendance the day before but Bishop Sheridan's session today had the 280-seat room nearly filled. A large chunk of pilgrims came from the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y. (Long Island), and there were pilgrims from Fort Collins, Colo., and the Diocese of Perth, Australia. The session was facilitated by a group from the Diocese of Tonga and Niue. They also provided the worship music throughout the morning.

The theme was "The Holy Spirit, Soul of the Church." The featured Scripture verse was: "For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body; and we were all given to drink of one Spirit." (1 Cor 12:13). The Mass readings were 1 Cor 2: 4-13 and Mt 16: 13-19 .

I could try to summarize what I liked about the talk, but listen for yourself. If you want to take part in what we're doing down here, below are three streaming audio files from today's catechesis session by Bishop Sheridan (Click on each header to launch audio... it may take a minute or two to load before streaming):

1. Main talk on "Holy Spirit, Soul of the Church." Approx. 27 minutes.

2. Discussion/Q&A after the talk. Approx. 26 minutes.

3. Bishop Sheridan's Mass homily (the session closed with Mass. The Gospel reading chosen today was from Mt 16, I believe.) Approx. 6 minutes.