In the July 25 B.C. Catholic, we shared the story of William Burgess, from the Dunneza and Cree people of West Moberly First Nations in northern B.C.’s Peace River Country, and his plan to attend the papal Mass at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium. He also shared how his experience with the Neocatechumenal Way community helped him abandon a destructive life path.

In the following article, his wife Yadira Llanovarced Torrico, a journalist from Bolivia, describes the trip and the many ways their family and friends were blessed by their pilgrimage to Edmonton and Lac Ste. Anne.

In the early hours of July 24, 2022, we left Vancouver for Edmonton, where we hoped to see the Holy Father, our Pope Francis. 

What was to be an overland trip for a family of seven and a fellow member of the Neocatechumenal Way from Blessed Sacrament Parish in Vancouver turned into a pilgrimage of six adults and eight children, eventually growing to nearly 20 people when we joined up with another Neocatechumenal Way family in Edmonton.

From the beginning of the trip God led us and showed his purpose. Our first stop to refuel was in front of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, one of the reasons the Holy Father was in Canada. In silence, meditative and with broken hearts, we continued our journey.

We arrived in Edmonton to rest in the house we were renting for our stay. At dinner time we prayed, giving thanks to God for the food and his providence. Then my husband spoke words I will never forget. “And we ask you, Lord, that one of us be blessed and touch the hand of the Holy Father.” We looked at him and told him he was so innocent. “You are asking too much.”

The next morning, July 25, the other Neocatechumenal Way family from Vancouver arrived. We settled into the house as best we could, nearly 20 people in an Airbnb.

Taking advantage of the free day, my husband and I went to renew the baptismal certificates of two of my children who born in Edmonton. The trip led to many important moments for my husband, among them being able to see his eldest son and his five-year-old grandson, whom he had not seen since 2014. They accompanied us all day.

Meanwhile, our Neocatechumenal Way catechist Milton was concerned about the comfort of so many people in the house. He told us he been offered another house for his family. My husband told him that he would feel offended if they left, but Milton insisted on going to see the house, which was in downtown Edmonton.

We went with him to see the city a bit and take a look at the route to Commonwealth Stadium where we would see the Vicar of Christ the next day. Along the way my husband pointed out the towers of a church and told Milton they were part of Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, where we used to go when we lived in Edmonton.

At that moment I looked at the time and realized it was exactly the moment that Pope Francis would be in Sacred Heart Church for the first event of his penitential pilgrimage, a meeting with members of the Indigenous community.

We drove on to Commonwealth Stadium, circled it, looked for the stadium entrance and other details, then retraced our route home.

Once again we coincided with Sacred Heart Church, and my husband decided to park, telling us the worst thing that could happen was the police would not let us pass. 

The street was absolutely silent, with a lot of security. We walked two blocks without looking at anyone. We didn’t want them to stop us trying to see the Holy Father, even from afar.

We reached a security fence and weren’t stopped. There were very few people around, only neighbours and Indigenous members of the parish. Some said they couldn’t see the Pope enter the church. They watched on their cellphones the celebration inside the church.

After about half an hour, we saw journalists coming out and then the cardinals. Far away we saw the Holy Father. Milton shouted in Spanish, “Long live the Pope.” Francis turned around and came toward us. We couldn’t believe it. It’s an indescribable feeling that happens only when God decides to surprise you. So much love, so much mercy, so much consideration especially with parishioners who were waiting hours behind the fences. It was very special. He was there, in front of us, very close. 

This event was very important for our family. My husband was with his 5-year-old grandson. The Pope shook hands with him, then with my daughters, blessing them.

This was how God, through the Holy Father, healed the wounds of the soul that my husband had carried since his childhood due to all the violence he had suffered. I saw him breathe deeply and feel peace.

The rest of us couldn’t believe it. Our hearts were beating fast, our hands were shaking, we couldn’t speak, because we relived this infinite and unconditional love of God with us.

I saw our friends’ daughters and thought how faithful God is with those who leave everything for him. The girls couldn’t afford to travel to a youth gathering in Quebec, so God prepared this gift for them. Their eyes shone as we were led to this precise moment. 

On July 26, William, always cautious, made us leave very early for Commonwealth Stadium – at 6 a.m. because the doors opened at 7:30. (I think sometimes we should pay less attention to him because we waited three hours until the celebration began!)

In those coincidences that only God makes, we found a seminarian from the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Vancouver, along with a Neocatechumenal Way sister from Whitehorse. We sat together, already happy to have seen the Holy Father up close. 

The Eucharist was wonderful with very clear messages for everyone: the urgency to care for and value grandparents more, to respect life and be open to it – which personally was comforting to hear when you have many children.

Hundreds of indigenous Canadians, many of them survivors of residential schools, listened to the words of our Pontiff asking them to forgive him. An innocent, just like they had been as children, asking for forgiveness and taking blame for something he didn’t do. Exactly like Jesus Christ.

I personally see how the word of God heals. My husband is a different person today, not only because of this event but because of the whole process and the help he has received within the Church through the catechumenate. Our marriage has been rebuilt. I hadn’t been able to understand certain things until Father Miguel Segura at Blessed Sacrament told me, “How can you ask for love from someone who did not have it but received just the opposite?” My husband was one of those children, who surely remembered many things from those days but as he says he also feels very loved.

After the Eucharist ended we all went to Lac Ste. Anne for the Pope’s meeting with First Nations. Our catechist Milton reminded us of the Spanish saying, “where three can eat, so can four.” It became “if 18 can enter, now 20 must enter because a seminarian and a sister from Whitehorse want to go to the lake.”

William Burgess and his wife Yadira.

And so it was, we went there to the territory of the First Nations and a sacred lake that they make a pilgrimage to every year to be healed by its waters. We lived a celebration of the Word together with the Holy Father – silent, penitential, where nostalgia and pain were felt. The Holy Father said the First Nations are the sound of the earth.

Members of our community had the opportunity to be within a few feet of the Holy Father and to be blessed by him with the water of the lake. Victoria, a little girl who travelled with us, was lifted up to the Pope. 

It was a long, exhausting day, but we came back happy, and the children will have it engraved in their hearts as a testimony of life. 

Our pilgrimage began the day we learned the Pope was coming to Canada to ask for forgiveness, because it was at that moment our intention to go out to meet him was born in our hearts. God opened paths and took care of everyone, even sealing it with the baptism of Victoria upon our return to Vancouver.

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