More than 200 students and chaperones from the diocese are in Washington, D.C., with the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry to participate in a three-day pilgrimage for the March for Life.
One of those participants, Samantha Pare, will be sharing dispatches from the trip with Sun readers each day. Samantha is a parishioner of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Liverpool and a sophomore at Onondaga Community College majoring in business administration. This is her seventh March for Life trip.
You can also follow along with participants on social media — look for the hashtag #syrmarchforlife.
January 21: Day One
At 7 a.m., five buses from the Syracuse Diocese departed from Bishop Grimes Jr./Sr. High School to travel to Washington, D.C., for the 42nd annual March for Life. There was a lot of talk to be done by the youth, who were very excited to participate in this event.
We made a few stops along the way. The first stop was in Emmitsburg, Maryland where we visited the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Tours were given of the various houses where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton taught school and housed the Sisters of Charity. After all the tours were finished, Mass was celebrated in the Basilica.
From there, we traveled to Fairfax, Virginia, where we attended a Life is Very Good youth rally. The rally started off with a concert performed by Rend Collective, a group from the small coastal town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. The speaker for the night was Chris Stefanick, who never ceases to gain the crowd’s undivided attention. And the worship for adoration was lead by none other than Matt Maher. Everyone from the diocese was on their feet singing, clapping their hands, praising God and having a great time altogether. It was a great start to the trip.
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Marching for Life with the Diocese of Syracuse
