Melbourne prepares to host Australia’s largest Catholic event this December

Preparations are ramping up as Melbourne prepares to welcome more than 10,000 young people later this year for the fifth Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF), the largest event on the Australian Catholic calendar. Taking place from 30 November to 2 December at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, this year’s festival marks a special homecoming, with the very first ACYF held in Melbourne back in 2013.

Diocesan and school leaders from across the country recently gathered at the Convention and Exhibition Centre for a national briefing, which included a tour of the venue and a glimpse at the festival spaces.

‘This festival is going to be the largest Catholic gathering in Australia,’ said festival director Teresa Rhynehart. ‘And it’s going to be a place of encounter for our young people. They will encounter the Church—our bishops, religious congregations, various Catholic organisations—and see the incredible breadth of the Church that exists in Australia.

‘But most of all, hopefully, there will be an encounter with our Lord. And that might be an encounter that they are having for the very first time in their life,’ she said.

The festival will bring together thousands of young people from Year 9 to 25 years old from across Australia, offering a range of activities including talks, Mass, prayer, workshops, live music, games, engagement with justice issues and an interactive expo.

‘We want to create a place where young people will be evangelised and can feel equipped and empowered to talk about Jesus in their own lives,’ Teresa said.

They will encounter the Church—our bishops, religious congregations, various Catholic organisations—and see the incredible breadth of the Church that exists in Australia.

The young heart of Australia

Dioceses across Australia are already planning their pilgrimages to Melbourne.

Kelly Paget, Chancellor and Director of Mission at the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay, shared how proud she is that her diocese has attended every festival since its inception. ‘We have a bit of a culture and a history with it,’ she said. ‘We always come as a joint group with our schools as well as our parishes, together on pilgrimage as one with our bishop.’

Broken Bay is sending 120 pilgrims to this year’s festival, which Kelly sees an opportunity for ‘the young heart of Australia to come together into one place’.

The festival, she explained, encourages both those already active in their faith and those who are just beginning to go deeper. ‘They get to see our lively Church on a bigger scale, and it’s really encouraging and exciting for them.’

More importantly, she said, it’s a chance for young people to explore their faith and ‘what it might look like as they step forward on their own, away from their parishes or away from their families as they get older. And you know what? It fills my heart too!’

For more remote dioceses, the journey itself is part of the experience. Kate Frazier from Armidale Catholic Schools shared how they are bringing a group of 50 students from towns including Armidale, Tamworth, Gunnedah, Moree and Inverell.

‘ACYF provides such a unique opportunity for young people to experience their faith out loud, on a large scale,’ Kate shared.

‘Very few of our students will have had the opportunity to encounter Christ in such a vibrant and energised setting, and I am so excited to assist in facilitating this.’

In the spirit of true pilgrimage, the travel will be just as important as the festival in terms of group encounter.

Given the distances involved, most of their local preparation will be conducted online, Kate explained, culminating in an in-person retreat at the end of Term 3 before the students set off on their journey. ‘From there we hit the road to ACYF!’

Kate estimates that the trip to Melbourne will take almost 24 hours in total. ‘In the spirit of true pilgrimage, the travel will be just as important as the festival in terms of group encounter. We plan on taking the train from Armidale to Sydney, and then the overnight train from Sydney to Melbourne.’

‘I do not anticipate much sleep being had on the way down. However, the time together as a group experiencing the anticipation of the festival will be invaluable!’

Offering a place to belong and participate

Having attended every festival since 2013, Adrian Gomez from Catholic Schools Parramatta sees the festival as a key formation opportunity for young people and a moment of ‘joy and excitement’ as the Australian Church gathers. The diocese is planning to send almost 200 pilgrims to the festival in December.

It’s also ‘a precious time of encounter of the young people with their bishops,’ he said. Journeying to the festival is about ‘experiencing the faith as a pilgrim group’, Adrian believes. ‘So much of the good stuff that happens as a group ... the experiences we share together that we [then] take back with us to our own diocese.’

The Diocese of Sandhurst is also planning to send 200 pilgrims to the festival, shared youth ministry team leader Claire Spinelli. It’s a prime opportunity for the diocese to foster a sense of belonging and community among young people from a geographically vast diocese, she believes.

‘ACYF offers us a great opportunity to bring young people together in a common pilgrimage, giving [them] a place to belong and participate.

‘And it’s not really just about the festival itself. It’s got a lot to do with the formation and the coming together in both the lead-up and the follow-up after the event, creating those spaces for young people to come to Jesus.’

A roadmap for the journey

To assist dioceses with their planning, Teresa outlined a four-phase roadmap to ACYF, which begins with prayer and discernment, followed by invitation, formation and then, finally, sending forth the young people on their pilgrimage.

‘The first step is to pray and to discern,’ said Teresa. ‘Asking yourselves, “Are we doing this? And how are we going to do this?” And then calling on the Lord to really bring forth the ability, the resources, the know how to be able to lead these young people.’

The second stage is to invite, with the festival team proposing that dioceses time their invitation around the Jubilee of Youth, which is set to take place at the end of July. ‘Use that as a weekend of invitation for young people to come forward and to come and to join the pilgrimage to ACYF,’ Teresa said.

The next stage will be forming the young people for the journey. ‘So once you know the young people who are coming with you, and you have your leaders, then you’ll want to bring them together in some way to provide them with formation,’ explained Teresa. ‘And that’s both spiritually, to understand the journey that they’re about to undertake, but also logistically and practically, giving them tips and advice for the trip.’

‘The final step will be sending your young people on pilgrimage,’ shared Teresa. ‘The Sunday before the festival is the feast of Christ the King, otherwise known as the annual World Youth Day.

‘And so it could be a wonderful opportunity to gather your pilgrims and to commission them locally, either in parishes or in your home cathedrals, and to send them on to ACYF.’